


Sea Changes

by mikkary



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Agoraphobia, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Drinking to Cope, Drowning imagery, Fae & Fairies, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Sea Monsters, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vampire Tropes, Werewolf tropes, not safe for newbies, vampire-related self-inflicted injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-08-23 16:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20246194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkary/pseuds/mikkary
Summary: Kurogane's assignments are generally simple. As a Knight of the Moon Court and hired sword for the In-Between Witch of Dimensions, he eliminates renegade Folk who have grown corrupted by their lust for blood and power. But his latest assignment presents a new set of challenges: a mysterious power polluting the sea, a monstrous wolf on the waves, and a strange blonde man in a house on a hill, who offers Kurogane hospitality and lies in equal measure.





	1. New Moon

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate title for this work could be, "the two times I scrapped this fic and started over again, and the one time I went back to my original draft and decided to finish that instead." Thank you Kristen, aka [mysweetbologna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysweetbologna) on AO3 and [skylo-ben](https://skylo-ben.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, for your patience, encouragement, and helpful suggestions as I bombarded you with outlines and snippets and "what if I started over...?" messages at all hours of the day and night.
> 
> This fic was written for Team Sea in the 2019 Kurofai Olympics, currently taking place on Dreamwidth, for the prompt "Vampire/Werewolf."
> 
> [My Spotify playlist for this fic, with songs in no particular order.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/11vO7S4coQnZ3rpZimMCvS?si=jeZTFQVESE6jNdj7jtr9QA)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Full fathom five thy father lies._  
_Of his bones are coral made._  
_Those are pearls that were his eyes._  
_Nothing of him that doth fade,_  
_But doth suffer a sea-change_  
_Into something rich and strange._  
– William Shakespeare, _The Tempest_, Act I, Scene 2

The In-Between Witch of Dimensions is here. The gravity of her presence pulls at the Moon Court like a tide; the breath of her passing floats through the halls with the smell of pipe smoke and incense. It’s a shift in the wind, a sea change.

No matter how much time has passed, it still makes Kurogane uneasy, and he’s not the only one. An emissary from Between is not usually a sign of good tidings. But when Kurogane reaches the Tsukuyomi’s receiving hall, Yuuko is sitting with Tomoyo at a low table, gossiping and laughing over tea as if this were simply a social call. They fall silent when Kurogane arrives and kneels, bowing his head to the ground out of respect for his princess.

“Rise, Kurogane,” Tomoyo says and pats the cushion next to her, gesturing permission for Kurogane to sit with them. “Yuuko has come with another assignment for you.”

Generally, Kurogane tries to avoid looking directly at Yuuko for as long as he can. She is someone – something – out of his nightmares. Then as now, her straight black hair frames her moon pale face, her sharp gray eyes, her smile that can be wicked and wistful in turn. She smells like heavy smoke and cloves and sandalwood in reality, but to Kurogane, she always smells of blood. And she smiles at him like she can read his thoughts. “It’s been a while, Kurogane.”

“I’ve been waiting,” Kurogane replies. He isn’t useless at the Moon Court, necessarily, but here there are few chances for him to hone his combat skills, and his place in Tomoyo’s personal guard feels mostly decorative. The bloodsuckers haven’t gotten close enough to put the Tsukuyomi’s court in danger for hundreds of years.

Yuuko’s smile widens slightly before fading. “Typical Kurogane, bloodthirsty as always. This time, my request will not be so straightforward. There is a… great darkness growing in the North Sea. The region has been opaque to my vision for some time, but the darkness has become thicker recently. It threatens to upset the balance of the Powers Between.” As she speaks, she pulls a rolled up piece of parchment from her voluminous kimono sleeve, though Kurogane knows nothing was there before. Yuuko is worse than Tomoyo, with all these sleight of hand tricks. She spreads out the map, spiderweb lines of ink following the brush of her fingers to trace out a map. Dimly, Kurogane recognizes Britain, Norway, Iceland. She points to a tiny archipelago in the middle of all three. “Here. Føroyar.”

“What?”

“The darkness began here,” Yuuko says and touches the parchment, leaving a drop of ink that spreads until it’s a blot that covers the islands and the sea surrounding it. “My influence in the region has always been weak, and now all farsight is blocked. I need someone to travel there in person and investigate. And that person needs to be a human – a full human – so whatever is blocking my vision does not get suspicious.”

“So you need me,” Kurogane says and thinks of Yuuko as he first saw her – tall and spectral in her butterfly kimono, walking unsullied through blood and gore as she approached an eight year old clutching his family’s heirloom sword and cowering in his family’s shrine. Then, she’d said, _I had owed your parents a debt, and that debt now falls to you, my child. Such is hitsuzen. And you are needed_.

Yuuko just smiles. “So, will you go?”

Then, twenty years ago, Yuuko had delivered him to the Moon Court, knowing that only the Tsukuyomi’s power could soothe his dreams and help him heal. She and Tomoyo had saved his life and his sanity. And while Kurogane isn’t bound by the intricate laws of debt and fate that tie the Folk together, he was raised by his parents to pay what he owes. Even when it means taking an assignment he doesn’t really want. “Yes,” he says, serious.

Yuuko’s smile turns teasing. “Even though you might not get to swing around that big sword of yours?” she asks, leaning forward and wiggling her eyebrows.

“_You_–” Kurogane begins, indignant.

Yuuko laughs, leaning back once more. “I brought you some clothes that humans typically wear in the region, so that you can blend in.” She towards a plain black backpack that rests casually, incongruously, against the delicate table with its silver filigree. “And as always,” Yuuko adds, reaching into one of her voluminous sleeves. She draws out the white bun, sleeping in her palm, “Mokona.” At the sound of its name, it wakes, eyes going wide for a moment before it smiles, bouncing from Yuuko’s hand to Kurogane’s shoulder with a cry of delight.

“Kuroga-_ne_~!”

“I told you last time, I don’t need this thing–” Kurogane begins, swatting ineffectively at Mokona as it burrows under his cloak. He grabs it by the ears and pulls it away from him, and it dangles from his fist, swinging its feet and looking delighted.

“Good luck getting by without it,” Yuuko says smugly. “This isn’t a place where you can just walk around with a sword strapped to your back, ready to kill things. You’re going to have to talk. To people. Mokona will translate _and_ hold all of your things.”

“Mokona will be very useful!” the white bun echoes in its high-pitched voice.

Kurogane groans. “You had better be quiet, too,” he says. “Things like you don’t talk to humans.”

“Mokona knows that! Mokona only talks to Kurogane!” Mokona says, crossing its tiny arms and giving a good impression of a pout.

“You talk too much to me,” Kurogane grouses, shaking the white bun. It gives a delighted squeal and squirms away from him, ending up on top of his head. Kurogane is about to try to shake it off when Tomoyo stands.

“You’ll need your sword, then,” she says. As she reaches out her hand, suddenly Ginryuu is there, summoned, Kurogane imagines, from its place in his chambers. Tomoyo holds the sword with one hand and makes a sign over it with the other hand, and Kurogane Sees a sparkling geas settle around the hilt. He feels a corresponding sensation in his right hand, and looks down to See the same geas winding around his hand. “There,” Tomoyo says. “To keep you from losing it.”

Tomoyo has never done this before, even during the other times when Kurogane has left the Moon Court. It makes him wonder how serious this is, really. He flexes his hand and feels a warmth there that corresponds to the weight of his sword. Even without looking, he’d know where it is and how to call it. “…Thank you.”

Tomoyo smiles. “Be well, Kurogane.” She steps back.

It’s Yuuko’s turn next. She hands Kurogane the backpack, and Mokona opens its mouth, vacuuming up both sword and pack into whatever interdimensional void it has for a stomach. “You’re welcome~!”

Kurogane grunts.

“I cannot transport you to the exact location,” Yuuko says once his belongings have been stored. “But I can get you close enough, and you’ll figure out the rest. Mokona has some things you might need… like money, of course.”

Although he’s almost thirty – as far as he can tell – Kurogane has little more than an eight year old’s grasp on how the human world works, and he knows it. But he’s resourceful, and he can See, and when you’re working for Yuuko things often tend to work out. Call it hitsuzen, maybe; Kurogane doubts that it’s coincidence. “Fine,” he says.

“Well, then!” Yuuko takes a step back as well, and Mokona’s weight disappears from the top of his head. Kurogane looks up to See wings unfurling from the back of the white bun. He steels himself – Yuuko’s transport spells are effective, but they aren’t gentle. “Remember, you know the price to speak to me through Mokona,” Yuuko says as the pure silver light her power, worked through Mokona, enfolds him. Kurogane makes a face. He understands the concept of balance in all things, so vital to the Courts and the In-Between, but that doesn’t mean he likes these kinds of transactions. “Don’t hesitate to pay it. You might need it.”

“We’ll see,” Kurogane manages even though Mokona’s power is stealing his breath away.

“May the Sun light your steps and the Moon guide you home,” Tomoyo says, and the voyagers’ blessing is the last thing Kurogane hears before the whole world turns brilliant silver-white and disappears.

*

It takes a bus, a ferry, a long hike, and a ride from a friendly stranger to get Kurogane from the place where Yuuko transported him to the place that he’s actually supposed to be investigating. By the time he’s reached the village in question, he’s thoroughly annoyed and half convinced that Yuuko dropped him so far away simply to watch him suffer.

Mokona, of course, is having a delightful time. The thing chatters in his for most of the voyage, remarking on the weather, the clouds, the green of the islands, the residual power that Kurogane can See in certain rock formations, around certain houses, embedded in certain stone walls. Humans are connected with the Between here in ways that remind Kurogane not unfavorably of his childhood in his family’s shrine.

Unsurprisingly, the power around them grows stronger as they grow closer to the place that Yuuko marked as the center of the darkness. Kurogane is startled when he gets out of the stranger’s car and Sees a telltale shimmer in the gravel under his feet as well as the fog hanging low over their heads. He squints and stares, and it takes him a moment to realize that Elias, the stranger who gave him a ride, is still talking.

“Hnh?”

Elias, an affable man, doesn’t seem to mind that Kurogane was ignoring him. Instead, he smiles and says, “Beautiful place, isn’t it? I was saying that it’s getting late. You might end up spending the night here.”

It’s barely past five in the afternoon, but the sun is already setting. Kurogane nods. “I was planning to stay.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” the man continues. “During the summer, Christian and Sonja open up their bed and breakfast, but it’s closed right now, and the village is too small for a hotel. We’re all a bit on-edge right now too, what with everything happening…”

Kurogane had never considered that he might struggle to find a place to spend the night. Then again, most of his assignments have been short term missions – go somewhere, kill what needs to be killed, and leave. This is different.

His head hurts. “I’m sure I’ll find somewhere.” He can always hike south again. The village where Elias picked him up was at least twice as big. And if worst comes to worst, he wouldn’t be surprised if Mokona has camping equipment hidden away somewhere.

“Your best bet is probably up there,” Elias says, nodding towards the north. The road looks like it ends there, at a house on top of the hill. “The folks who live there don’t come into town much, but they’re friendly enough, and they don’t mind helping out a stranded tourist or two. I’d drive you, but,” he gestures at the trunk of his car. “Groceries. And my wife has probably already started worrying.”

It doesn’t seem like a long walk from Elias’s house to the top of the hill. “That’s fine,” Kurogane says. “Thank you for the ride.”

Elias smiles. “My pleasure. It’s not often we get new people to talk to, this time of year. Stay safe and keep your eyes open.”

“Mm. You too,” Kurogane says, shouldering his pack and starting up the road. As he leaves the main part of the village, the power staining the earth and sky becomes more obvious to his Sight. This is what power looks like when it’s impure, unbalanced – it’s slick, with constantly shifting layers of color that remind Kurogane of oil on water. It’s something spilled here, or collected on the surface of the land and the water and then _stuck_.

“I don’t like this,” Mokona says. The white bun has been awfully quite from its perch on his shoulder; Kurogane supposes that’s why. And he can’t help but agree. He bends down to pick up a pebble from the side of the road, rubbing its smooth surface. The slowly shifting iridescence on its surface don’t respond to his touch, and when slips the pebble into his pocket, he can’t See any traces left on his hand. At least it’s not contagious.

Mokona huddles against Kurogane’s ear, and Kurogane resists the urge to pull it away from his head. “And that looks like a _haunted_ house!”

It’s true that the house on the hill is built in a different style from the rest of the village. Where most of the buildings are squat, square, and painted bright colors, the house on the hill is taller, thinner, and still bears the color of whatever dark wood and stone was used in its construction. It’s not very charming.

“Don’t be stupid,” Kurogane grouses. But even he feels a flicker of apprehension as he raises his hand to knock on the door.

The sound echoes dully, and several moments pass by. “It really is a haunted house~!” Mokona says in a singsong tone that sounds more excited than scared.

Kurogane is opening his mouth to tell the white bun to shut up when the door opens, and the doorway is filled with glowing golden light.

Mokona gasps. It’s only stubbornness that keeps Kurogane from doing the same. And when he finally manages to stare past the geas that’s confusing his Sight, he sees a thin, blonde man almost as tall as he is, looking at them with a cautious but friendly smile. “Hello,” the man says. “I wasn’t expecting any more visitors today. What can I do for you?”

“Hello!” Mokona says, bouncing up and down on Kurogane’s shoulder. “Mokona needs a place to stay for the night!”

The man doesn’t react, and Kurogane, who had been preparing to grab Mokona to shut it up, freezes. He can’t See?

Mokona seems to think the same thing. “Hello…?” it tries again.

“Uh, hello?” the man repeats, but looking directly at Kurogane. “I said, was there something I can do for you? Do you speak English? Danish? Hmm… Russian?”

Kurogane blinks. “Uh– Elias. Elias in the village said I should come here to ask about, uh, staying the night. Since it’s late.” How can this man have such a strong geas on him, yet lack the Sight? Is he human? Something else? Does he _know_?

“Oh,” the man says, looking Kurogane up and down with some curiosity. Then he steps aside and holds the door open, his smile widening into a grin that looks entirely false. “Well, in that case, welcome! You look like you have a big appetite, but I just got groceries today, so there should be plenty of food for tonight!”

Kurogane doesn’t want to step into this house. He doesn’t want to get closer to this man and his strange geas and his annoying fake smile until he can figure out what, exactly, is going on. But he can’t stay on the doorstep forever, and maybe this is part of the mystery that Yuuko sent him here to unravel. He steps inside. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. My name is Fai Flowright.” The man shuts the door and holds out a hand for Kurogane to shake.

Kurogane takes his hand with some wariness. It feels normal. Human. “Kurogane.” He never gives more than that, and his true name is hidden away. Yuuko and Tomoyo are the only Folk who know it.

“Kuro, then,” Fai says, turning to head down the narrow hallway as Kurogane removes his shoes in the entryway. “Make yourself at home.” He’s barefoot, Kurogane realizes, and clad it an outfit that looks like… pajamas? He exchanges a glance with Mokona, who is squinting at Fai with a little wrinkle between its brows.

“It’s Kurogane.”

Fai ignores him. “This is the living room, kitchen,” he says, gesturing first through one doorway and then through another. Both rooms have painted wooden walls and older style furniture. The place is clean and seems to be well-kept. On the living room wall, there’s a large framed oil painting of a seascape. Kurogane has the brief but vertiginous feeling that the ocean in the painting is actually moving, and he has to blink and double check that he isn’t Seeing things.

“Bathroom, storage room,” Fai continues, gesturing to two other doors. “There isn’t anything particularly valuable here, by the way.” He smiles at Kurogane. “Since you are kind of a suspicious person, I thought I would let you know.”

“What–” Kurogane sputters, and hears Mokona giggle into his shoulder.

Again, Fai ignores him. “Now, upstairs. Follow me.”

The steps, like the floor, are wooden, and they creak as Kurogane follows Fai upstairs. Fai’s geas was clearly placed on his back; it shines even brighter from behind. Kurogane doesn’t usually See geas that are as bright as this. What does the it _do_? Who placed it? And what, exactly, is this geas binding?

“My bedroom,” Fai says, gesturing towards a closed door. “And this is the bedroom of the other person who lives in this house.” He gestures towards another closed door. “He isn’t here right now, but please don’t snoop.” He gives Kurogane a wide smile that doesn’t at all reach his eyes, then turns towards the other side of the hall. “There’s the bathroom,” he points to an open door, “and my studio is up here.” There’s a door on the ceiling with a cord hanging down. “A ladder comes out when you pull the rope,” Fai explains. “And, the guest room. This is where you’ll be staying, Kuro!”

“It’s Kuro_gane_,” Kurogane says, increasingly annoyed by Fai’s blithe smile and over-familiarity. And that stupid geas is making it hard to see – its so bright that it confuses Kurogane’s eyes into thinking the hallway is more well-lit than it is.

“That’s what I said,” Fai replies, and he’s really just doing it to annoy him, isn’t he? Kurogane wants to punch him. But he doesn’t, because he also wants somewhere to sleep tonight.

Fai opens up the guest room door and then moves across the stuffy room to open the windows and let in a breeze. There’s an unmade bed in the corner – it’s on the small side – along with a nightstand and a lamp. Above the bed, there’s another painted seascape, with a shadowy cliff and a stormy sea. It has a faintly ominous atmosphere, and Kurogane eyes it warily for a moment before glancing around the rest of the room, which is occupied by a closet and a dresser. “It’s not much, but it’s nicer than camping, I imagine,” Fai says as he opens up the closet and pulls out a set of sheets and a couple of blankets, placing them all on the bed. “How long are you staying?”

“Uh,” Kurogane says. Until he figures out what’s going on, and probably until he fixes it.

“Well, we can work that out later. Though if you’re staying for long, I’ll have to have Olli come bring me some more groceries. Or,” Fai says, tilting this head slightly to look at Kurogane. “You look big and strong. Maybe you could bring them up from the village tomorrow.” His sly, teasing tone reminds Kurogane – to his vast annoyance – of Yuuko.

“Why don’t you just get them yourself?” Kurogane grouches, and Fai’s smile falters just slightly.

“I don't go outside.”

There’s a whole world hidden in that phrase, but it isn’t something Kurogane wants to open up right now. He wants a place to sleep, after all, and it looks like the house on the hill is the only one accepting visitors at the moment. “Fine,” Kurogane says after a beat.

“Well then, it’s almost dinnertime, isn’t it? Let’s see what I can whip up,” Fai says, slipping past Kurogane and out the door of the guest room. Kurogane gets the impression that he’s running away. “You can come downstairs now or later.”

“Hn,” Kurogane grunts. He might as well get the sheets on the bed while Fai putters around the kitchen. If they spend too much time together, he’s got a feeling that it will just lead to a fight.

“He couldn’t see Mokona,” the white bun says once Fai is out of earshot. “But Mokona thought he would be able to…” It sounds disappointed. It’s too friendly for its own good, Kurogane thinks.

“Why’s that?”

“Mokona had a feeling!” it says and jumps off Kurogane’s shoulder to start tugging at the sheets and helping with the bed. “But it was very faint.”

“Hm.” Kurogane starts shaking out the sheets as well. Whatever Mokona sensed could have been from the geas, which is probably messing with its otherworldly senses in the same way it’s messing with Kurogane’s Sight. On the other hand, there’s always the possibility that there’s something _more_ to Fai, even if he can’t see Mokona. “Do you think he’s one of them?”

“Mokona doesn’t know,” the white bun admits. “But if he was, wouldn’t he be able to see Mokona?” It frowns for a moment, and then laughs and jumps up to grab a sheet out of Kurogane’s hands. “Not that one! The fitted sheet is first, Kuro!”

“Don’t _call_ me that!”

Between Mokona’s (entirely unhelpful) guidance and Kurogane’s griping, they manage to get the bed in the guest room made passably well. It’s the first time Kurogane has done something like that; he’s always slept in the traditional style, even when he was a child. Come to think of that, this will be his first time sleeping in a Western-style home.

… What a pain.

When they’re done, he closes the door behind him and looks around before moving to the other end of the hall.

“Kuro is being sneaky~!” Mokona says in a sing-song whisper in his ear.

“Shut up,” Kurogane mutters. He opens the door to Fai’s room. Unlike the rest of the house, it’s an absolute mess. There are clothes strewn around the floor, books and papers piled up haphazardly on shelves and on the floor, a laptop computer abandoned on the unmade bed (since when did computers get so tiny?), about ten different cups and mugs sitting on the desk and the nightstand. He can See a few traces of power here, gold like the geas on Fai’s back and probably remnants of the same. Strong power has a tendency to rub off onto people and objects alike, when it comes into contact with them.

“What a mess~!” Mokona says in a sing-song voice. Kurogane shushes it again and shuts the door.

There’s also the bedroom that belongs to “the other person that lives here” – and that’s just about the most suspicious phrase Kurogane’s ever heard. After listening for a moment at the top of the stairs to make sure that he can still hear Fai in the kitchen, Kurogane moves to check the other bedroom.

The door is locked.

“Hmph.” Maybe another time. They’ve been upstairs long enough and he doesn’t want Fai getting suspicious. He starts heading down the stairs, steeling himself for another hour or so of airheaded teasing and stupid fake smiles.

The white bun bounces up and down on his shoulder. “Kurogane had better save some food for Mokona~!”

*

It’s difficult to settle in a wooden house that seems to creak with every stray breeze. The tiny guest bedroom is smaller than any room Kurogane has slept in before, and it makes him feel claustrophobic; it doesn’t help that he has to curl up to even get his feet on the bed.

He rolls to one side, and then to the other side, restless. It’s only half to do with the sleeping arrangement. He’s also thinking about the residual power he Saw clinging to everything on the island, the golden geas resting on Fai’s back, Fai himself – the strange man who can’t see Mokona but _should_, who welcomes strangers but won’t leave his house, who dodges every personal question so completely that by the end of dinner, Kurogane knows only that Fai rarely has visitors besides the grocer, that he paints as a hobby, and that the other person who lives in the house is his “guardian” who is currently on a business trip.

It’s annoying.

Mokona shifts on the pillow, plastering itself against Kurogane’s cheek, and Kurogane has had _enough_.

“You have your own pillow!” he snaps, grabbing the white bun by the ears and pulling it away from him as Mokona shrieks and giggles in protest.

He can’t sleep like this. Standing, Kurogane begins pull sheets and blankets off the bed, layering them on the floor instead as a makeshift shikibuton. He grabs a pillow, too. “There. You have your bed, I have my bed.”

“Kurogane is so mean! Kurogane doesn’t want to cuddle with Mokona!”

“Shut up–” Kurogane begins and then stops, freezing.

Mokona stops too, its ears perking up and its face turning towards the window. Kurogane has left it open for the moment, and an unearthly sound drifts in with the breeze – a howl that rises and falls, a primal song without words. The noise makes his skin crawl with fear, and he touches the silver talisman around his neck.

_Wolf_, he thinks even though he’s never heard a wolf howl before.

“K-Kurogane,” Mokona begins, but he’s already rushing towards the window, sticking his head outside. This side of the house has a view of the cliffs and beyond that, the sea, and it sounds like the howling is coming from that direction. It rises in pitch and then falls with a sobbing rhythm, and there’s no way it’s a wolf, because Kurogane can’t imagine anything mundane could cause this instinctive panic.

The howl rises again, crescendos, and then – stops. The absence of sound is almost as eerie as the howling. Kurogane shakes himself and straightens. “I’m going to find that guy.” He needs to know if this is something that happens often. “You stay and tell me if it starts again.”

Mokona doesn’t look very happy to stay in Kurogane’s room, but it nods anyway. Kurogane throws a shirt on and heads out the door. He hasn’t heard Fai come up to bed yet, so he turns to go down the stairs.

The floorboards creak under his feet. There’s a dim light coming from the living room, and when Kurogane pokes his head around the corner he sees Fai huddled in the window seat and looking out into the darkness, towards the sea. The geas on his back glows soft and golden and frames him with an ethereal halo, a counterpoint to the silvery full moon hanging low over the horizon.

When he’s not putting on a show, Fai is… tolerable to look at, Kurogane thinks, but there’s some kind of melancholy shadowing his expression and making it difficult to think about him in that way.

Kurogane clears his throat and Fai startles, the liquid in his glass nearly sloshing over the edge as he whirls around. After a second of unguarded surprise (dismay?), Fai’s fake smile comes back with more force than ever. “Kuro! You’re up late. Drink?” He gestures to the bottle of whiskey on the small table next to him.

“No,” Kurogane says. Such a blunt refusal is a deadly insult to any of the Folk, but Fai doesn’t seem bothered. So is he? Isn’t he? “Did you hear that just now? Outside?”

“Hear what?” Fai asks, topping up his own drink. Kurogane can’t tell if his blank expression is genuine, or if it’s covering for something. “Sometimes stray cats get–”

“The howling,” Kurogane says, cutting him off. “Like a wolf, or… something.”

Fai still looks blank, but with the added politeness of someone who isn’t certain that his conversational partner is fully grounded in reality. “No,” he says, his smile faltering a little. “Was it a dream?”

Kurogane stares at him. He watches as, under the weight of his gaze, Fai drops his eyes, looks away, shifts in his seat, adjusts his grip on his glass. “What?” Fai asks finally, his false smile a little tremulous.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Kurogane says. “You really didn’t hear anything?”

“No, but… I wasn’t listening,” Fai says, his gaze slipping to the window again. Kurogane looks at it as well, but there isn’t much to see, or to See, especially not in comparison with the glow of Fai’s geas.

The Folk don’t lie. They can’t, not directly, but they can twist the truth this way or that. Someone trying not to lie would have answered Kurogane’s question in a more careful manner. Wouldn’t they? But if Fai’s human – humans can lie whenever they want. “Have you ever heard anything like that?” Kurogane asks.

“No,” Fai says and then shifts, pulling himself away from the window to turn and face Kurogane fully, his smile once again plastered on his face. “Are you _sure_ you wouldn’t like a drink?”

“No,” Kurogane says, and turns to leave. He listens as he makes his way back up the stairs, but all he hears is the creaking of the wooden stairs beneath his feet. The guest room, when he reaches it, is cold from the damp sea breeze. “Did anything else happen?” he asks Mokona. The white bun is silhouetted in the open window, its body emitting a faint silvery glow even in the dark.

“No,” Mokona says, turning to Kurogane. “It stopped, and Mokona couldn’t see anything. Did Fai hear it?”

“No,” Kurogane replies, but without confidence, as he goes to shut the window. If the noise is gone, there’s no sense sleeping in the wet breeze all night. And he doesn’t want anything from the outside getting in. As always, Yuuko has given him materials to ward what he is trying to protect. He pulls out the sheaf of papers from his backpack – all of them glowing soft and silver in the darkness of the guest room – and places one on the door and two on the window. They brighten at his touch, and then settle. Kurogane adds a line of salt across the windowsill for good measure. Barriers can always be overcome. It’s better to have more of them than less.

He sighs and strips his shirt off again, then goes to his pile of blankets on the floor and lies down on his back. Now that his adrenaline has ebbed, the exhaustion of the long day is catching up with him: first the transportation geas, and then dealing with so many humans and possibly-not-quite-humans. “I’m sure that guy knows more than he’s telling. And his geas…”

“If Mokona can see the whole thing, Mokona can describe it to Yuuko and the other Mokona,” the white bun offers.

Kurogane will admit, at least in private, that there are times like now out here in the Between that he’s grateful for Mokona’s presence, and for its abilities. He yawns. “Mm. We’ll do that. I’m going to sleep now.”

“Mokona will stay awake and listen! And wake Kurogane up bright and early~!”

“Don’t you dare,” Kurogane says, rolling onto his side and pulling a sheet up over himself. Now that he’s finally relaxing, he feels as if his body is rocking gently from side to side – a sense memory of the ferry he’d taken earlier that day. Maybe he should have accepted Fai’s offer for a drink. Maybe Fai would have opened up a bit under the influence of alcohol; maybe Kurogane would have gotten something more out of him.

Yeah, right.

Kurogane sleeps and doesn’t dream, and when he wakes up, the house is smothered in fog. It’s pressed up against the second floor windows, blocking the meager morning light. The fog is thinner closer to the ground; from the window in the kitchen, Kurogane can see about fifteen feet of the winter-yellowed grass on the hill before everything is obscured.

“It comes in during the night, usually,” Fai says. In spite of his late night, he’s already awake when Kurogane comes downstairs. He has dark circles under his eyes and his flyaway hair is in even more disarray than yesterday; Kurogane isn’t sure whether he slept at all. “I hate mornings like this.” He laughs.

“Hn,” Kurogane says, turning his gaze away from the window as Fai places a mug of black tea in front of him.

“Cream and sugar?”

“No. Thank you.” The fog isn’t natural. It gleams with that shimmering, iridescent oil-slick of unbalanced power. No wonder Yuuko can’t see what’s happening here. Everything is polluted.

Fai moves away from the table and then returns a few minutes later with a stack of toast on a plate. “What do you usually eat for breakfast, Kuro?”

“Rice. Fish,” Kurogane says, eyeing the bread. “Nothing sweet.”

His response makes Fai laugh, and when Fai returns a moment later with butter and three different jars of jam, Kurogane understands why. “Well, you’re out of luck here, I’m afraid. But I have black currant jam, lingonberry jam, and orange marmalade. You might like the lingonberry jam. It’s tart.” He hands the jar to Kurogane.

Kurogane takes it with a frown, but ultimately, it’s more important to keep his strength up with whatever food he can find than it is to complain about weird jam flavor and disgustingly sweet breakfast food.

“So, what are your plans for today?” Fai asks. He’s taken a piece of toast with no jam or butter, and he’s now idly tearing it into pieces.

“Walk,” Kurogane says with his mouth full. The lingonberry jam is sweet and tart at the same time. It reminds him of Tomoyo’s desserts, which he doesn’t eat too often because most food in the Moon Court isn’t meant for consumption by humans and always sits strangely in his stomach. He swallows his mouthful. “Seeing the beach.”

“I hear it’s not so nice in this time of year,” Fai says. “At least the fog will probably clear up soon.” He finishes disassembling his toast and now starts making a small tower on his plate from the pieces. He glances up from his task to meet Kurogane’s eyes. “Did you… hear anything else last night?”

Kurogane glances out the window. He can see the fog dissipating; can See the iridescent power twisting with the breeze and then fading away. “No.”

“Well. That’s good.”

The conversation dies for a bit as Kurogane eats a second and third piece of toast and Fai plays with his uneaten food. This Fai is different from the one Kurogane ate dinner with last night – _that_ Fai wouldn’t stop teasing Kurogane and asking him prying questions. This Fai seems washed out, distant, weighed down by the geas perching like a vulture on his back.

Kurogane finishes his tea, which was bitter and iron-strong from being steeped for too long. “Aren’t you going to eat?” he asks when Fai’s toast tower collapses for the fourth time.

Fai startles and looks up with an almost guilty expression. “Yes, I–” He grabs a fresh piece of toast, then butters it and spreads it with marmalade. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Kurogane scoffs, but he watches Fai finish his piece of toast bite by bite even though this has nothing to do with him.

Fai is too skinny anyway.

When Fai gets up to clean up the breakfast dishes, Kurogane grabs a final piece of toast and spreads it with jam for Mokona, folding it in half and wrapping it in a napkin. “Thanks for breakfast,” he says as he heads upstairs.

Mokona was still sleeping when Kurogane left the bedroom. The white bun still hasn’t gotten out of bed when he comes back, but it does stand up. “Kuro! Mokona doesn’t feel good.”

Kurogane frowns. “Are you sick?”

“It’s the weather,” Mokona says, hopping up to the windowsill with some effort. The view from the second story window has cleared somewhat; Kurogane can see the ground and a ghostly outline of the top of the hill. “It feels… heavy.”

Fai wasn’t feeling well this morning either. But Kurogane wonders if that’s not just something to do with who Fai is as a person. He sighs and unwraps the piece of toast. “Well, if you’re sick I guess I have to eat this myself.”

“No! Give it!” Mokona says and leaps up to grab the toast out of Kurogane’s hand, chomping it down in one bite. So much for being sick. “Yum~! Mokona feels _much_ better now.”

Kurogane scoffs. “I’m going to do some exploring today. You should stay here and watch Fai, try to get a look at his geas.” He should probably feel guilty for sending Mokona to spy on their host, but there’s something about Fai that rubs him the wrong way, and it’s not just his weird personality.

“But what if Kurogane gets into trouble?”

“I’ll stay close enough,” Kurogane says. Mokona’s powers of translation only work within a certain radius, but this is a tiny island and a tinier village. Kurogane will probably be fine as long as he remains on land. And he has no intention of going for a swim. “Just leave out my sword, in case I need it.” Tomoyo’s geas is still anchored in his hand, and he can use it to call Ginryuu to him if need be.

Mokona complies, opening its mouth and summoning Ginryuu. Kurogane catches the sword, the weight of its hilt familiar and comforting in his hand. He doesn’t know yet what he has to fight – but he’s ready for that time to come. For now, Ginryuu goes under the bed, and Kurogane shrugs on the raincoat that Yuuko had folded in his pack. It’s a garish neon green with yellow accents, and Kurogane _knows_ she picked such obnoxious colors on purpose.

“Kuro looks like a martian~!” Mokona laughs.

“Yuuko lets you watch too much crap TV,” Kurogane grumbles. He zips up the raincoat. “If anything dangerous happens, hide, alright? I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Fai is lingering near the front door. “I thought I’d give you this, for when you come back,” he says, handing Kurogane a key attached to a red and white lighthouse-shaped keychain that says VISIT KALSOY. “To open up the door. I’ll probably be working upstairs.”

“Thanks,” Kurogane says, slipping the key into one of the pockets of his ridiculous raincoat.

“Enjoy your day,” Fai says with an insincere smile and slips away.

*

Outside, it’s cool and wet, and Kurogane carefully tries not to think about how the wrongness of this place has permeated the air and is probably settling in his lungs even now. The fog, at least, has cleared up enough that he can see about fifty feet in front of him, even though the sky is still totally obscured. Even with that visibility, it’s still a surprise when he climbs to the top of the hill and sees that it ends in a steep cliff that plunges about a hundred feet down to the ocean, where the waves crash against a small rocky beach.

After a half hour of exploration, Kurogane finds a path that zigzags down the cliff. He picks his way carefully through the switchbacks, keeping an eye out for other people or _things_. The cliffside seems devoid of any creature larger than a puffin, though, and the beach isn’t much better – there’s all kinds of seaweed washed up on the shore, along with shells and a dead crab or two, but not much else.

On the other hand, the cliff and the beach are practically _oozing_ with that same iridescent, unbalanced power that permeated the fog. It’s unclear to Kurogane whether the power is part of the cliff itself or whether it comes from water in the air condensing on the rocks. Maybe it’s both, because when he gets down to the beach and takes a closer look at the waves, he Sees a telltale shimmer in the swirling foam that caps the breaking waves and remains behind as the water recedes.

The power seems much thicker here than it did back in the village; the presence of the Between is strong and almost oppressive, like a heavy cloth blanketing the landscape. Kurogane must be getting closer to the source of it, then. Maybe he should go get Mokona and bring it down the cliff; the white bun would probably be better at picking up these traces.

Kurogane has been walking the beach for an hour or so, trying to get a sense of where the power is coming from, when he hears voices. Instinctively, he moves out of view, shifting back towards the cliff to gain some cover.

“–the second time this week. We’ve already gone through this place with a fine-tooth comb. What more could we find?”

“I’m waiting on the dredging to give us real answers.”

“And if that doesn’t work? You never know when we’ll find something new. Hilde said there was something strange in the cliffs.”

“Hilde is getting dementia, and everyone knows it.”

A group of five men comes into view, all of them wearing variously colored raincoats and most of them holding walking sticks that they use as aids to navigate the jumbled rocks on the beach at the base of the cliff. They’ve fanned out to cover as much ground as they can, and most of them have their eyes on the ground even as they gripe to one another. They’re looking for something?

“Hilde _with_ dementia is wiser than you in your prime, Christian, and everyone knows _that_ too.”

Kurogane hunkers down, counting on the jagged shadows of the cliff to obscure him from view. If he was wearing his usual black cloak with its sneaky geas, gifted to him by Tomoyo when he joined her personal guard, he would have faded into uninterrupted darkness. But he’s not wearing that; he’s trying to blend in with humans, and the neon green raincoat is the worst possible camouflage. It only takes a matter of seconds before someone is calling to him. “Look – by the cliff! Who’s there? Show yourself!”

Kurogane’s first instinct is to run or to fight. But these are humans, he reminds himself – humans like him – and anyway, he has questions. He shifts, standing up and being careful to show that he’s unarmed, with his hands open at his sides. Their eyes widen at the sight of him. “Sorry,” he says. “I was… looking for seashells.”

He’s never been good at lying, even though it’s one thing he can do that the Folk can’t, and the untruth sits awkwardly on his tongue. He has the absurd thought that it’s something that idiot in the house on the hill would say. _I was looking for seashells, haha. Don’t mind me or my geas_.

“In this weather?” one of the men says with a frown.

Kurogane scrambles to think of some explanation, but before he has to come up with an even more ridiculous lie, one of the men says, “Hey – I know you!” It’s… Elias, from last night, the one who gave him a ride into town. Huh, Kurogane thinks. “He’s a tourist, just got here yesterday,” Elias tells his companions, and their tense postures ease slightly. One of them had been holding out a walking stick threateningly, as if he planned to fight Kurogane with it; he lets it drop back down to the sandy beach. “He came in on the ferry; I drove him up from Syðradalur.”

“Thank you,” Kurogane tells Elias, surprised by this show of trust when everyone seems on edge. A few men are still looking at him with narrowed eyes but the atmosphere has grown markedly less hostile. (One of them whispers “_but he’s huge!_” to the man next to him, probably thinking that Kurogane’s hearing is worse than it really is. Kurogane ignores him.) “What, uh, what are you doing down here? Looking for something?”

The group grows tense again, but this time their emotion isn’t directed towards him. “It’s…” Elias looks at his fellows and then back at Kurogane. “There have been disappearances. Four people from here, and two from Kunoy, in the past three months.”

(“_Why doesn’t he know this?_” “_Tourist_.” “_But still– at this time of year–_”)

“Six,” Kurogane says. And from what Elias told him last night, there are really fewer than a hundred people who live on Kalsoy year round.

“And not just fishermen. This time of year, that would make sense,” Elias continues. “But we lost Ragna’s daughter last month. And the search parties,” he gestures at his little group, “haven’t turned up anything. They’ve really vanished. And there’s not much they have in common, except they disappeared from the beach.”

(“_It’s something to do with the tides_.” “_Climate change, more like_.” “ _Hilde says there must be a beast–_” “_Wise women’s tales_.”)

Kurogane’s gaze moves away from Elias as he looks across the beach, Seeing again the slick and shimmering power that coats every stone, every grain of sand, that caps every wave. First the darkness and the noise last night, and now the disappearances, and the polluted power everywhere. What has he gotten into? “Should I stay off the beach then?” He has no intention of doing that.

“Probably,” Elias says. “We don’t go down here unless we’re in a group anymore, and never at night.”

“Hn.” Kurogane has a lot to think about. “Thank you for the warning.” And he remembers what Elias said last night: “stay safe and keep your eyes open.” He supposes that must not be a normal blessing in around here, like he’d assumed previously. “I’ll get going, then.”

(“_Still so strange to see a tourist here, now_.” “_Well, there’s more and more every year…_”)

“Stay safe,” Elias says, like last night, and then, as Kurogane turns to pick his way back up the cliffside trail, he calls to him again. “How’s everything alright up there? In the house big house?”

Kurogane looks back at him. “It’s–” strange, infuriating, a _giant pain_ “–fine. Thanks for telling me about it.”

Elias raises a hand in farewell, and Kurogane nods and turns to set up off the cliff.

By the time he makes it back to the house on the hill, Kurogane is sweating underneath his bright green raincoat even though it’s hardly warm; the awful polyurethane fabric traps the heat from his body and seems to redouble it. Kurogane is also frustrated and annoyed. The trek has given him time to think, to turn over this situation in his head. It’s seems clear that the howling he heard last night and the disappearances are both related to whatever strange power has stained the land and sea of Kalsoy. But there’s too many variables in this situation, too many unknowns, and in Kurogane’s mind, all the questions circle around _Fai_.

The ground floor of the house is empty when he stomps inside, kicking off his boots because he’s not an _animal_, regardless of how annoyed he is. He shucks off his stupid green raincoat too, and then climbs up the stairs. The trapdoor in the ceiling is hanging open, with a ladder that ascends into the attic, and as Kurogane ducks around it, Mokona jumps through the door and thuds into his back.

It takes all of Kurogane’s trained self-control not to yelp and throw the white bun away from him. He takes a breath, lets it out, and grunts in response to Mokona’s high-pitched greeting.

“_Kurogane_~! Kurogane’s back! Mokona was getting so lonely because there was nobody to talk to. Fai doesn’t see Mokona at all! He just walks around and looks sad and paints pictures. But his pictures are pretty! Kurogane should go and see!”

Kurogane waits to respond until they’re back in the guest room with the door shut. Just because Fai can’t hear Mokona doesn’t mean Fai can’t hear him, unfortunately. “He’s upstairs?”

Mokona has made its way up from Kurogane’s back to his shoulder, and Kurogane takes advantage of its new position in order to grab it and hold it up by its overly long ears. That just makes Mokona kick its legs back and forth, giggling. “Fai is painting! Swing, swing~”

“Did you get a look at his geas?” Kurogane prompts, shaking Mokona a bit. The rough action only makes the white bun giggle louder. “White bun.”

Mokona sobers up just slightly. “Mokona didn’t recognize it, but Mokona can show Yuuko and the other Mokona later, if you talk to her.”

“Good.” Kurogane drops Mokona, but besides crying out in (feigned) dismay, the white bun seems unaffected by his annoyance, instead bouncing right back up to his shoulders. “I need to talk to that guy, so don’t interrupt.”

“Fai looks sad even when he’s painting,” Mokona offers, its face serious for once.

“Hn,” Kurogane says. How annoying. He ditches the bright green raincoat in his room, draping it over a chair so the dampness clinging to the impermeable fabric can get a chance to dry, and then ducks out into the hall and, after a moment’s trepidation about its structural integrity, begins to climb the ladder. It creaks, but it holds, and he makes it to the attic.

The space is well-lit, thanks to a generous skylight that allows the weak winter sun to filter in through the slanted roof. Half of the attic is taken up by boxes that, from their layer of dust, look like they’ve gone untouched for years. The other half is cluttered in a different way, with canvases of various sizes and in various stages of painting. Some look finished; other are blank or contain sketches and rough drafts in oil paints. They’re all seascapes. And in the middle of them is Fai, standing with his back turned towards Kurogane as he faces a massive canvas. The painting isn’t close to finished yet, but Kurogane can see the ocean stretching out flat and massive on the lower part of the canvas, while the upper two-thirds are dominated by a view of the sky, where thick and richly textured storm clouds are gathering on the horizon.

Perhaps it’s not accurate to call Fai’s painting a seascape; maybe _skyscape_ is a better word.

“Oi,” Kurogane says.

Fai startles violently, jerking the brush away from his canvas and letting it fall to the floor as he whirls around. The brush leaves spatters of dark blue paint on the floor. Fai, lit by his golden geas and silhouetted by the massive stormy sky painted behind him, looks like a vision of impending doom. Kurogane can’t tell whether his expression is frightened or angry.

And then Fai recognizes him and relaxes, pasting on that insipid smile once more, and the moment is over. He’s still wearing pajamas, Kurogane realizes. And house slippers. And his hair is a mess.

“Kuro! I wasn’t expecting you up here. How was the beach?” Fai asks as if he didn’t nearly just throw his paintbrush across the room.

“I ran into a search party,” Kurogane says, crossing his arms over his chest. His annoyance, which had faded a bit in the face of Fai’s undeniably gorgeous paintings, is returning full force now that the idiot is smiling at him again. “Why didn’t you tell me people were disappearing?” Fai had talked at him for _hours_ last night.

“Why would I have told you, Kuro?” Fai says, keeping the stupid nickname and continuing his foul attempt at a smile even as he glances around the room, clearly looking for an escape route. “You don’t have anything to do with this.” Finally giving up the idea of escape (Kurogane is standing right in front of the only real exit from this room), Fai looks him in the eye again, tilting his chin up slightly. 

So there’s actually some steel in him, underneath all the lies and fluff. And – perhaps he has a point. Kurogane is too used to the Moon Court, where everyone knows him and his story, and where even visitors can recognize him. After all, the Folk are very good at smelling out human blood.

But now Kurogane is among humans (and whatever Fai is), and these people have never seen him before. Nor will they recognize the code, the symbols, the Sight that marks him as the Tsukuyomi’s sworn knight, or the Dimension Witch’s errand boy. Kurogane lets out a breath through his nose. “I’m… investigating.”

Fai raises his eyebrows, the hard look in his eyes barely papered over by his attempt at an amused smirk. “For the government? For Interpol?”

“No,” Kurogane says. If he tried to claim that lie, things would fall apart in a hurry, even though he doesn’t doubt that Yuuko could give him the tools to make sure everyone believed him. There would be a high price for that. “I…” He thinks for a second. “Someone I know… disappeared like these people have. And I’m trying to figure out the connection.” There are grains of truth in the statement, though Kurogane doubts it would pass as a truth by the Folk’s standards.

“Oh,” Fai says and shifts, his posture relaxing slightly as he looks over Kurogane with new eyes. It’s a bit discomfiting, and Kurogane wonders what he’s seeing. “I… understand.” He crosses his skinny arms over his chest. _Why_ is he still in pajamas? It’s long past noon. “Olli at the grocery store keeps track of who’s gone missing, and his wife is in charge of organizing the search parties, if you want to talk to her. Do you think that all of this is connected, then? That this is happening on purpose?”

Kurogane frowns. “Do you not?”

“The ocean is greedy here,” Fai says, and Kurogane thinks of the iridescent gleam of power that coats everything, land and sea and sky, in this area.

“More greedy than anywhere else?”

Fai tenses a bit, his arms tightening across his middle. “I don’t know,” he says. “Probably. I’ve never been anywhere else.”

“Liar,” Kurogane says without thinking, and watches Fai’s eyes go wide like he’s been slapped. And then the armor is back up, a second too late – Fai’s expression shutters; his smile returns.

“You know,” he says, his voice too casual to be truly relaxed, “some people say that this is a haunted island, I’ve heard. Haunted by the ghosts of people who drowned. They come back as seals.”

“Drowned people don’t do that.”

Fai’s expression twists once more, unreadable – is it pain? Spite? Annoyance? “I know,” he says. His smile is too wide, too stiff for his face, in the same way that the geas is too bright, too big for his skinny shoulders. “Everyone knows drowned people never come back.”

“Kurogane,” the white bun whispers into his ear. “Mokona thinks that we should leave Fai alone for now.”

“Shut up,” Kurogane says. He’s not sure whether he’s talking to Mokona on his shoulder, or Fai in front of him, standing before his painting.

Fai looks away, and Kurogane stomps down the ladder and into the hall. The wood creaks alarmingly again, but it holds.


	2. Wolf Moon

Night falls on the island slowly and then all at once, and by six in the evening, it’s fully dark. Fai drifts down from his studio when it’s too dark to see anymore, his geas enveloping him in a soft golden glow, and appears surprised to see Kurogane sitting in the kitchen.

“Hungry, Kuro? Waiting for someone to cook you dinner?” he teases, with a vapid smile and sharp eyes.

“Sorry,” Kurogane says, before he can think better of it. “About earlier.” Even if Mokona hadn’t chided him about his behavior, Kurogane likes to think that he would have apologized anyway. He knows he overstepped the line. “The disappearances – it’s – they’re personal.” Except his parents hadn’t disappeared, because he’d seen their bodies in front of him, limp and lifeless and drained of blood. _Eaten_.

Fai blinks and then relaxes slightly, losing some of the tension in the sharp lines of his shoulders. “Olli said that Naina, Ragna’s daughter, was – _is_ – only eight,” he offers, moving past Kurogane into the kitchen. “I’d have liked to think it was just… unlucky, before.” He says that word with a slight grimace.

“There’s no such thing as luck,” Kurogane says. There are debts and there is hitsuzen, and maybe, Kurogane is willing to allow the existence of _fortune_, but luck is too random and capricious to fit with what he has learned of the ways of the world.

Fai laughs quietly as he starts pulling out pots and pans to start dinner. “You would say that, wouldn’t you, Kuro?”

“I went down to the grocery and talked to your ‘Olli’,” Kurogane continues.

“He isn’t _my_–”

“He gave me the dates that everyone disappeared over the past couple of months. I’m going to map it out later, but it seems like everyone disappeared when the moon was full.” Right now it’s just a hunch, but Kurogane knows the lunar cycle as well as anyone from the Moon Court, and he also knows that powers of all kinds – even those In Between – are tied to the waxing and the waning of the moon. The tides. The pull of blood in every human’s veins.

Fai freezes with his back turned, facing the stove. “The… moon.”

“Just a hunch,” Kurogane says, but he narrows his eyes at Fai’s back. The idiot knows more than he’s telling.

Dinner is a dish that Fai calls spaghetti and seems shocked that Kurogane hasn’t tried before. It’s yellow noodles in a tomato-based sauce that’s too sweet for Kurogane’s taste, along with thick bread and a green salad with an equally sweet dressing. It’s filling enough, mostly because of the noodles and bread, but it isn’t exactly what Kurogane would call a _meal_.

“What about fish?” he says, using a chunk of bread to soak up the remnants of the sweet red sauce. “You live on an island.”

Fai wrinkles his nose. “Fish taste like the ocean. I don’t eat them.”

“Tch,” Kurogane says and gets up for seconds.

After dinner, he lets Fai offer him a drink. Tonight, it’s vodka, not whiskey, that Fai is drinking, and when Kurogane agrees to share, Fai suggests they mix it in hot chocolate.

“More sweet stuff?” Kurogane asks with evident disgust.

Fai laughs and makes himself a hot chocolate, leaving Kurogane to sip at the liquor plain. It’s not… bad. It tastes like alcohol and nothing much else, but it’s a far cry from the liquors he’s familiar with in the Moon Court. Those burst on your tongue with concentrated flavor – Kurogane likes the tart, slightly sour plum wine the best – and get you drunk after two or three sips. Fai’s vodka is a pale shadow of that power, but the liquid warms him from the inside.

“Why don’t you leave the house?” Kurogane asks once Fai has a decent amount of alcohol, and is reclining boneless on the couch with his second mug of vodka-spiked hot chocolate.

It’s a testament to how much liquor Fai has consumed that he doesn’t immediately tense up or try to leave. Instead, he turns his head to look at Kurogane, his smile only slipping a little. “Why would I? I have everything I need here.”

Kurogane fixes him with a look, and Fai takes a large drink. “And bad things happen,” he adds. “When I go outside. And there’s the ocean.” He gestures idly to the seascape hanging above the couch, which Kurogane now recognizes as his handiwork.

“What about the ocean?”

Fai shrugs and finishes his drink, then swings his legs over the couch lazily and sits up. “Hmm. Between us, we’ll finish the whole bottle tonight.”

Frustrated at Fai’s dissembling, Kurogane tosses back the rest of his glass. “I’m going for a walk,” he says. It’s a plan he came up with that afternoon, waiting for Fai to come down from his studio. “To the beach. To see what’s happening.”

_That_ makes Fai’s composure slip. His eyes widen and he fixes his gaze on Kurogane’s face. “Right now? At night?”

Kurogane shrugs.

“People _disappear_, Kuro. It’s dangerous–”

“It’s a full moon tonight. And yesterday…” Yesterday he’d heard those eerie howls from the direction of the beach.

Fai clutches his empty mug with both hands. “_I_ didn’t hear anything yesterday. Really, Kuro. It was probably the wind.”

Kurogane narrows his eyes, but this time, it doesn’t seem like Fai’s lying. At least, not on purpose. “If someone’s going to get taken tonight, I want to stop it,” he says.

“So you’ll disappear instead,” Fai says, his pale face looking wan and sickly in the yellow glow of the geas on his back.

“I won’t. Idiot.” Kurogane stands and places his empty cup down before turning and heading upstairs without a word. He checks the silver crescent moon talisman around his neck, a reflexive gesture, and then the other small wards and protections around his person. Then he dons his cloak and makes sure Ginryuu is still in its hiding place under the bed, ready to be summoned. Wordlessly – for once – Mokona hops up onto his shoulder and burrows into the fabric of his cloak. They’re both ready for a hunt.

“Kuro,” Fai says when Kurogane comes down the stairs again, swathed in the cloak of shadows. He hasn’t moved from the couch; it’s as if he’s frozen in place with the geas behind him. “Where are you from?”

Kurogane looks at him and wonders what kind of answer he expects – what kind of answer he’s quite literally braced for. “Japan,” he says after a beat and turns towards the entryway. “Don’t wait up for me.”

Fai is quiet when Kurogane slips out the door and shuts it behind him. After a moment’s hesitation he places a paper there – one of Yuuko’s wards, which will hold at least until he gets back. And then he sets off across the hill, the winter-yellowed grass crunching softly under his feet. The sky is clear at the top of the hill, and the moon is already at its zenith in the sky.

In the Moon Court, it’s always night, but the moon hangs huge and silver in the sky, providing light for the night-blooming plants in the garden. As Kurogane glances up at the sky now, from the human world and the domain of those In-Between, it feels awfully far away.

“Mokona feels something,” the white bun murmurs from just under his ear. “Something growing.”

Kurogane can feel it too, though that might just be his imagination – the power that pollutes this land shines iridescent in the light of the full moon, and it’s getting brighter. Is it cause, effect, or sympathy? He doesn’t have the type of Sight that would allow him to tell; that belongs only to the most powerful Folk.

And then the howling starts and Kurogane doesn’t think about pollution anymore. He runs down the hill and towards the cliffside path, scrambling through switchbacks and over boulders to get down to the beach as quickly as possible. The noise rises and falls like sobbing on the wind, and Kurogane can see fog begin to rise off the surface of the water. Whatever is out there is hiding itself as it hunts.

“Coward,” Kurogane spits, and he’s on the beach, looking around. The fog doesn’t fully obscure the area yet, but once it does, he’ll be fighting blind.

There’s a howl again, closer this time, and Kurogane flexes his hand, focusing attention to the geas on his palm. Suddenly, Ginryuu is _there_, the silver handle a familiar weight in his palm. “Alright, bastard,” Kurogane says, grinning. This is what he came here for. Not poking around in a village, not passing the time with blonde idiots. _This_ – the simplicity of his sword in his hand and death on the wind. The hunt. He draws his blade.

“It’s coming,” Mokona whispers from his shoulder. “From the ocean–”

And then the white bun cuts off with a quiet gasp as a shape rises from the waves. Although it’s shrouded in fog, the shape is unmistakable – there’s a wolf on the waves, a great beast dripping with seafoam and seething, _teeming_ with that oil slick power that coats everything in this part of Kalsoy.

The wolf huffs once, twice, its breath sounding like waves breaking on rocks, and turns its head. Kurogane feels rather than sees the weight of its gaze through the gathering fog. “Hold on tight,” he murmurs to Mokona, feeling the white bun burrowing further into its coat as he steps back on the rocky beach, holding Ginryuu in a ready stance.

There are a few moments of silence, and then the wolf springs forward, curling towards Kurogane like a giant, crashing wave.

Time slows as it always does in combat, and Kurogane Sees. The wolf isn’t skin and fur – it’s bone-white coral draped with rotting seaweed, and its eyes are flat and blank like pearls. But its long, needle-like teeth are real and they snap fruitlessly on empty air as Kurogane shifts his weight and dodges to the side at the last minute.

Ginryuu flickers out to strike at the beast’s ribs, but the mats of seaweed threaten to entangle the sword. Kurogane disengages and jumps back as the wolf turns to spring again.

It _smells_, Kurogane thinks with that detached portion of his brain that witnesses all of his fights. Like foul seawater and old blood – like the power of the Folk twisted and gone foul. The miasma around it makes it difficult to breathe. He strikes again, this time towards its muzzle, and the thing rears back, swiping at him with a massive paw instead.

For all its size, the beast moves faster than expected, and Kurogane barely dodges. Mokona yelps as it clings to him, and he unceremoniously grabs the white bun, tossing it behind him. “Wait over there!”

The beast huffs again and shifts backwards, coiling as if to spring after Mokona. Kurogane intercepts, stabbing towards its ribs again. This time, he’s prepared for the matted, tangled seaweed, and Ginryuu slices through, scoring coral ribs and a coral humerus. Thick, black ooze wells up in the wake of the silvered blade, not blood but rather foul-smelling sludge, rotting matter from the bottom of the sea.

The beast _roars_ as it turns, snarling and swiping at Kurogane, forcing him backwards. It’s almost too late before Kurogane realizes he’s being herded towards the ocean, and as one of his feet steps backwards he feels it sink dramatically into the waves, as if the water itself is trying to ensnare him. He yanks himself free with a curse, but that gives the beast enough of an opening to slam its paw against Kurogane’s ribs, sending him flying to the side and sprawling against the rocks. He drops Ginryuu in the fight; it clatters down and away from him.

“_Kurogane!_” Mokona calls from wherever it’s hiding, its voice high-pitched with desperation.

Kurogane shifts and manages to get himself on his back as the beast springs towards him. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the strain in his ribs, he flexes his hand, summoning Ginryuu back in time to hold it steady and bury it in the thing’s chest.

There’s a horrible _crunch_ as Ginryuu slices through matted seaweed and coral bones. It’s buried to the hilt, and Kurogane lets go of it as he scrambles away from the beast, which stands there… and howls.

From up close, the sound is dizzying. It makes Kurogane’s bones ache and he staggers for a moment before gathering himself and recalling his sword, standing ready in spite of the ringing in his ears and the pain in his ribs.

But the beast doesn’t attack. Instead, as it howls, the oily, iridescent fog rises until Kurogane can barely see two feet in front of his face. And then the howling recedes, and the night grows silent.

“Kurogane?” he hears from somewhere to his left. “It’s gone.”

Mokona. Kurogane lets out a breath and finally lowers his sword, relaxing. “Can you get rid of this, white bun?”

There’s a soft sound in the sand and then Mokona is hopping up onto Kurogane’s shoulder. “Mokona can’t blow it away, but Mokona _can_ show you the way back,” it says, and Kurogane sees it frowning at him, its eyes opened to slits. “Kurogane’s bleeding.”

Kurogane had assumed the wet feeling on his scalp was ocean water, or some foul remnant of the wolf-beast. He reaches up to touch his temple, and when he looks at his fingers, they’re dark with blood. “Hn.”

“Is Kuro badly hurt?”

Now that the adrenaline is slowly leaving his body, Kurogane takes a moment to evaluate how he feels. His ribs ache but they’re bruised, not broken, and he’s bleeding from the temple but he doesn’t have any of the telltale fuzziness that would come with a concussion. He got off easy, he thinks, because that beast was no joke – but it hadn’t been prepared for Ginryuu’s silver plating, or for the geas in his hand that summoned back his sword. Kurogane, on the other hand, had underestimated the beast’s speed and strength, assuming it was one of those foul things that lured unwary passers-by with words or with power.

He lets out a breath. “I’m fine.” But it is problematic that he’s bleeding, and that the beast might have gotten a taste of it. “Can we track it?”

Mokona is silent for a moment, and then shakes its head – really, its whole body. “Mokona can sense it, but it’s very faint. The fog…”

“Hm.” The fog is a problem. Kurogane wipes Ginryuu and then sheathes it, then turns towards the path. “Let’s hope it’s done for the night, then. And you, white bun – time to earn your keep. How do I get back?”

“So _mean_~” Mokona says, its teasing more subdued than usual. But it guides him through the dark and up the cliffside path. When Kurogane finally reaches the top of the hill, his palms scraped and his knee hurting from where he tripped on the hidden path, the fog isn’t as dense, and he can see a light on in the house.

Hopefully Fai didn’t wait up for him. Before entering, Kurogane takes a moment to dab at the blood on his face. He doesn’t need questions or, worse, _fussing_. But when he steps inside, using the spare key Fai gave him earlier that day, the house is silent. Fai is lying on the couch, his limbs akimbo and mouth open, with the bottle of vodka now empty on the floor beside him. The geas glows softly behind him, cradling him in light.

_Idiot_, Kurogane thinks. But he creeps forward anyway. There’s a throw blanket tossed over the arm of the couch, and he lifts it slowly, ignoring the protest in his battered ribs, to spread it across Fai’s thin form.

As soon as the blanket touches his body, Fai jolts awake, grabbing Kurogane’s wrist. Maybe it’s a reflection of the geas, but for a second, he thinks he sees Fai’s eyes flash gold. Kurogane blinks. Fai’s eyes are blue. “Kuro! You’re alive,” he gasps.

“Let go of me,” Kurogane says.

Fai doesn’t. “We need to talk.”

*

For all the urgency in his voice, it takes Fai a few moments to untangle himself from the couch. Kurogane can’t tell if he’s drunk, sleepy, or both, but the first thing he does when he meanders to the kitchen is snag another bottle of vodka from the freezer and pour two shots – one for him, one for Kurogane. “You’ll need this,” Fai says.

Kurogane is sitting at the table. Figuring that it’ll be some time before he makes it back to his room – and not wanting Fai to get cold feet and clam up again – he’s decided to take care of his injuries here. He’s wrapped Ginryuu in his cloak and tucked it away, washed out the cut on his temple, and gotten his shirt off. Currently, he’s running his fingers over the rapidly swelling bump on his ribs. “I need ice.”

Fai tosses back his shot of vodka, pours himself another glass, and caps the bottle, handing it over to Kurogane. It’s freezing cold. “Use this.”

It’s not ideal, but it’ll do. Kurogane wraps the sweating bottle in his shirt and presses it against his side. When he looks up, Fai is watching him. His blue eyes, for once, are serious, and the set of his mouth is almost vulnerable. Kurogane has never paid so much attention to someone’s face before.

“What?”

“Are you human?” Fai asks.

Given the situation, the question isn’t surprising. “Yes,” Kurogane says, and takes the shot. The liquor is foul; it burns its way down his throat and he has to stifle a cough. He clears his throat. “Are you?”

Fai drinks, and then gets up and goes to the freezer, where he pulls out a second bottle of vodka, since the first one is nestled between Kurogane’s left arm and his rib cage. Kurogane turns to see him drinking straight from the bottle. “Oi.”

“I’m– human enough.” The geas flares slightly behind him as he speaks. “That’s not important. I…” Fai takes another drink and looks vaguely like he wants to be sick. “You went out to fight the… the whatever it is.” The evasion is clumsy and unconvincing. “You came back. Humans don’t _do_ that, Kuro. Who are you, really?”

It’s clearer than ever that Fai knows much more than he’s telling, and it’s also clear that he’s tying to decide whether or not to open up. Kurogane could punch him. That might expedite the process. Or it might make Fai clam up for good, and make this assignment ten times longer. He sighs and holds up the crescent moon talisman that’s hanging around his neck, Seeing it flare a bit with the movement. “My name is Kurogane Suwa. I was raised in Shirasaki Castle as a ward of the Moon Court. I serve as part of the guard of the Tsukuyomi and–” _errand boy_ “–a hired sword for the In-Between Witch of Dimensions.”

“And Mokona is Mokona~!” the white bun says from its spot on the table, and Fai startles, nearly dropping his bottle.

He looks at the thing, then at Kurogane, then back to the thing. “Where did that come from?”

“White bun,” Kurogane growls. He didn’t know that Mokona could reveal itself to humans or– or human-like _things_.

“This is one of Mokona’s 108 secret techniques!” it says proudly, and hops forward to extend one of its tiny hands to Fai. Fai, looking bemused, reaches out to shake it. “Mokona wanted to meet you sooner, Fai, but we were,” it lowers its voice dramatically, “_undercover_. And Fai should be able to See Mokona, but he can’t!”

“Ah,” Fai says. “Nice… nice to meet you.” He gives Kurogane a mildly helpless look.

“It’s a construct. Belongs to the In-Between Witch,” Kurogane says, and removes his own bottle of vodka from under his arm to pour himself another shot. He feels like he’s earned it. “Annoying thing.”

Mokona jumps to headbutt him in the arm, sending vodka splashing onto the table. “_You_–” Kurogane growls, swiping for it as it darts away.

Fai gives a shaky laugh, even though his eyes are still wide and he looks like he’d rather do anything but that. “And you, you _two_, are here to… to deal with the thing in the ocean? To get back everyone who’s disappeared?”

“We are~!” Mokona says with a cheer that really isn’t warranted for the situation.

“Shut up,” Kurogane growls. He doesn’t know for sure, but given the appearance and behavior of the creature he fought, he doubts that anyone will be coming back, no matter how well things go from here on out. “The Witch wanted me to see what’s happening here because she can’t,” he says gruffly, drinking his vodka and then wrapping the bottle back up to press it against his bruised ribs. The second shot is less bad than the first, now that Kurogane knows what to expect. “I figure whatever’s blocking her Sight has something to do with that thing, and I figure there’s no point in letting it take any more people. So.” He shrugs, ignoring the way the gesture pulls at already sore muscles, and fixes Fai with his gaze. “Tell me what you know.”

Fai shifts, keeping his eyes warily on Kurogane as he swallows and licks his pale lips. Then he finally sits down again, clutching his bottle of vodka with both hands. “Its– his– the thing’s name is Ashura,” he says, his gaze sliding away from Kurogane and Mokona to rest on the table before him. “This is his house. His and mine. He told me he was a king, before… all of this. That he was cursed. I thought he was fighting it off, that I was… _helping_ him. But it’s gotten worse.” Fai pauses, and Kurogane remains silent, watching him chew on the inside of his cheek. “It gets bad around the full moon. It always did, and he would go… but he hasn’t been back in months. And I think…” Fai pauses and glances up at Kurogane, meeting his eyes for only the briefest moment. “Are you going to kill him?”

As if Kurogane is going to do anything _but_ kill that monster. “He’s killed _six_ people. At least.” Kurogane’s voice is harsh. He has no sympathy for monsters, and no patience for those who do. Who knows how many other disappearances there were before this? Who knows how deeply this curse has twisted into Ashura’s being while Fai remained ignorant or at least unaware? “And one of them was a little girl.”

Fai is staring past him, out one of the windows. His shoulders are tense and his jaw is set. “He raised me.”

Kurogane looks at him. “I don’t care.” He’s going to kill Ashura either way. Fai’s feelings are hardly as important as people’s _lives_.

“I won’t let you,” Fai says and meets his eyes. “I want to talk to him, first. The full moon is almost over. If I could–”

“No,” Kurogane says and stands. He towers over Fai like this, and Fai leans back a little, clearly fighting not to be intimidated. _Good_, Kurogane thinks fiercely and ignores the twinge of guilt, the little prickle of conscience as Fai flinches away. “That’s a bad idea.”

“You don’t understand–”

“_You_ don’t understand!” Kurogane snaps, cutting him off. “Things like that– they’re _monsters_. Bloodsuckers. They _eat_ people, idiot, and any sympathy they’ve shown you is a ploy to get you on their side.”

“Kuro_gane_,” Fai says, and the use of his full name is almost jarring, when it comes from Fai’s mouth. Fai stands, and though his frame is willowy and thin, he’s almost as tall as Kurogane. “Don’t talk about things you don’t know.”

“I know more than you,” Kurogane says, and for a second he thinks that Fai is going to strike him. But he doesn’t. Instead, he turns his back, exposing the golden geas that shines through the thin fabric of his shirt, and takes a long pull from the bottle of vodka. Kurogane’s eyes move from the nape of his neck to his thin shoulders, his narrow hips. He swallows. “What’s that geas on your back?”

Fai’s stiff shoulders get even stiffer, and he takes a step back as he turns, putting more distance between him and Kurogane, and glancing around the room like he’s trying to escape from a trap. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Liar,” Kurogane says and watches Fai flinch. “Who put it there?”

Fai shakes his head and takes another drink from the bottle. The level of liquid in the bottle has grown alarmingly low. Kurogane doesn’t know much about liquor, at least the mundane sort, but he’s fairly certain people shouldn’t be drinking so carelessly. If this were the Moon Court, Fai would be dead drunk by now. “Ash– your _monster_ won’t come out again tonight. Especially if you’ve wounded it,” he says. “Which I imagine you did, because you are alive, and relatively unscathed, and you are not acting like a man who ran from a fight.” He’s gripping the bottle so tightly his knuckles are white. “So I think you should go to bed now.”

The command in Fai’s voice is clear. For a moment, Kurogane thinks about ignoring it, about continuing to dig into Fai’s soft spots until he pries the whole story out of him. But some battles aren’t worth fighting. Not in the small hours of the morning anyway, and not like this, with Kurogane shirtless and so aware of Fai’s lean body near him, as if he, or his geas, radiates some kind of imperceptible heat.

“Kurogane,” Mokona says softly from the table. Its voice breaks the tension, and Kurogane lets out a heavy breath, turning to look at it.

“Fine,” he says. He grabs the white bun and his cloak, and turns to head up the stairs to his room.

*

However many eons ago, the Court of the Sun and the Court of the Moon were created by the undying sorcerer Clow Reed to regulate the complex layers of debt and payment and arbitrage that bind the Folk together. There are rules in the Courts about what can be asked for and what can be paid, about the kinds of geas that can be used. In exchange for allegiance to the Tsukuyomi or the Amaterasu, the Folk receive protection, stability, and, most importantly, balance, for there is no debt incurred in the Court of the Moon that does not have its equal and opposite payment in the Court of the Sun.

In the Between, the ambiguous realm that swears allegiance to no Court, that exists in the twilight and the glow before dawn, in thresholds and standing stones and hidden sea caves and fairy rings, debts and payments are simpler but infinitely more dangerous. The wrong debt, the wrong payment, can incur lasting damage to the threads of hitsuzen that bind everything in its place.

And that is why the In-Between Witch of Dimensions, equal and opposite of the sorcerer Clow, is so important, for she is one of the few who has an innate sense for the balance of all things, for the fairness and unfairness of the debts and payments made outside the bonds of each Court.

The most powerful of these debts and payments are those that involve human blood.

Kurogane is aware of all of this; he grew up knowing it. But that doesn’t make it feel any less _wrong_ as he raises his silver knife and slices across the vein in his upper arm. Blood wells up in fat droplets, beading on his skin. “Okay, white bun, open your mouth,” he says and turns his arm over.

Mokona's mouth is less an actual _mouth_ and more a portal into some Other space, into a pure distillation of the Between, held in place by geas that Kurogane can't begin to – and doesn't really want to – comprehend. Still, it's disconcerting, seeing the cute-looking white release a swirling vortex of power that siphons up the drops of Kurogane's blood as they fall. No matter how many times he's done this, Kurogane will probably never get over how creepy it is.

Ten drops of blood, the fair price for a conversation with Yuuko, and Mokona's eyes open wide. The jewel in its forehead glows, projecting an inscribed circle – Yuuko's circle – that resolves into an image of the witch herself. She's at her home (shop, whatever), lounging halfway on a couch. Kurogane always wonders if she knows when he's going to call and deliberately drapes the folds of her kimono to show as much cleavage as possible.

“Ah, a call from the hunter,” she says, bringing her long-stemmed kiseru up to her lips and inhaling, then exhaling a stream of smoke.

Kurogane's ribs hurt, and his mind is still on that disastrous conversation with Fai. He doesn't have time for this. “Witch.”

“_Madam_ Witch to you, Mr. Black,” Yuuko says. “I wasn't expecting you to call so soon.” Kurogane sees her eyes flicker up and down, evaluating him; he's cleaned up the gash on his temple and shrugged on a clean shirt, but he's sure he still looks battered enough that it's obvious.

“Kurogane and Mokona found some scary things!” Mokona pipes up before Kurogane has a chance to respond. It's probably for the best; he's only getting annoyed with Yuuko. “And made a friend!”

“Interesting,” Yuuko says and raises her eyebrows. She sits up slightly, the loose kimono falling a bit and exposing one of her shoulders, and crosses one long leg elegantly over the other. Kurogane doesn't know _who_ she's putting on this show for. It's never done much for him.

He sighs and sits on the bed, Mokona turning towards him to keep him in view. The freezing cold bottle helped, but his ribs still protest a bit at the movement – he'll be even more sore in the morning. And then Kurogane gives her a brief account of what he's found, starting from his arrival in Kalsoy: the strange pollution and the fog; the disappearances and the wolf from the sea. And then he spends some time talking about Fai: his geas, his strangeness, his relationship with this “Ashura” who was the wolf.

Yuuko listens and for once doesn't interrupt, though her expression grows grave. When Kurogane finishes, she shakes her head and brings the kiseru to her lips, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. “A king in the deep sea, cursed and laid low. That _might_ be enough to block my sight.” She sounds skeptical, and Kurogane frowns. “You said Mokona got a look at Fai's geas. Mokona, show me.”

“Yes, Yuuko~!” Mokona says, and then frowns in concentration. The image projected from Mokona's jewel freezes and flickers, replaced by a moving image clearly captured from earlier that day. The white bun can be a kind of camcorder when it wants to, and Kurogane usually tries not to think about whether it's also recording him. Because this – this is definitely a violation of privacy.

It's Fai, looming above them from Mokona's weird vantage point. The image shifts – Mokona jumps up to a better angle – and it becomes clear that they're in Fai's incredibly messy room, looking at Fai from behind. The idiot is just standing there, staring at nothing. Like he'd stood with his back turned to Kurogane not half an hour ago as he argued that Kurogane should let a monster live.

“Wait,” Mokona says, and the image jumps forward.

Now Fai is moving again. He runs his hands through blonde hair, then sniffs at his pajama shirt and wrinkles his nose. Kurogane feels the creeping embarrassment of invading someone's privacy, even though he knows this is more than necessary. And then Fai grabs the hem of his shirt and lifts it up over his head.

The image freezes.

Recorded with Mokona's vision, the geas is more readable, less blindingly brilliant. Kurogane's gaze traces the fine lines of it, starting at the center of Fai's back and moving up to his shoulders and along his arms. It looks like a bird in flight, except not exactly. A stingray, Kurogane thinks, tracing one thin line down Fai's back, where it hugs the curve of his spine. And then Kurogane is looking not at the geas but underneath it, at Fai's sharp shoulder blades, the divots of his hips, the ways his ribs are just slightly visible when he raises his arms like that.

He's too skinny, Kurogane thinks again so he doesn't think about other things, like how it would feel to run his fingers along the looping lines of power pressed into Fai's skin. (He imagines his fingertips tingling with that power, and Fai shivering under his touch.)

“And that's it,” the white bun says, disrupting Kurogane's train of thought. The image of Fai disappears, replaced by the witch.

“A geas for binding,” Yuuko says, her gaze distant and unfocused. Her surroundings seem to draw in around her, and Kurogane imagines that he can inhale the atmosphere of that shop – smoke, incense, _blood_ – even from where he is now. “Drawn from the sea but strengthened by his power. Made to grow as he grows. A wish that cannot be sustained without his consent.”

“So it's voluntary,” Kurogane says gruffly, trying to stop thinking about the smooth lines of Fai's back. “And he has power. Is he one of you? The Folk?”

“I cannot say,” Yuuko says, and Kurogane is beset by familiar annoyance. Can't say because she doesn't know, or can't say because of some debt or bond or wish or destiny? Sometimes hitsuzen is useful, when it works out in his favor. Sometimes, most times, it's a giant pain. “The sea is deep and contains many currents.”

Annoying. “Don't bother talking, if you're just going to be cryptic,” Kurogane grouses and runs his hands over his close-cropped hair. The movement refocuses his mind on the ache in his ribs, and he lowers his arms with more care than he used to raise them.

Yuuko laughs. It's grating. “Power from the sea is older than power from blood and almost as powerful. You will not have an easy time of this, Kurogane. But you did tell me that you wanted a challenge.” She smirks for a moment, before her face grows serious again. “Dealing with the curse will be one thing. Figuring out the root of this problem is another, and for that, you will to deal with Fai.”

“Deal with?” Mokona repeats tremulously, looking up at the image of Yuuko that's being projected from the gem in its forehead. “But Mokona likes Fai. Will Fai be alright?”

Yuuko gives her construct a gravely sympathetic look. “I don't know, Mokona. That depends on the choices that all of you make from this moment.” Then she turns her gaze to Kurogane, shifting forward in her chair again. “Remember, Kurogane. A geas, in its simplest form, is a wish made with power. But there are some wishes that can never be fulfilled, in this world or any other.”

Kurogane is too tired for this. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Yuuko replies, giving him an annoying smile. She straightens. “Now, that's about all the information I can give you in exchange for the price you've already paid. And I think it's all that you need. You were raised well, Kurogane. By your parents and by the princess of the Moon Court. When the time comes, you will know what to do.”

That sounds… final. Kurogane frowns and opens his mouth. “What–” he begins.

Yuuko ignores him. “Mokona, you're doing a great job,” she says to the white bun, and smiles at it. “I will see you soon.” And then the image projected from Mokona's forehead flickers and finally disappears.

Without Yuuko's larger-than-life presence, the room is silent. Kurogane breathes out and thinks about Fai, downstairs, probably drinking himself into a stupor. He rubs a hand over his face. He's tired of wishes and debts and trying to fix other people's messes. He wants to do something concrete – to face a monster in battle, to fight the way he's been trained. But even that isn't going to be so simple.

“Mokona.”

“Yes?” the white bun says, hopping around to face Kurogane.

“Watch the idiot. Make sure he doesn't do anything too stupid. Yeah?” The last thing he needs is to worry about rescuing Fai while he's dealing with Ashura. “And don't let him see you.”

The white bun nods, looking grave. “Mokona will do that. What is Kurogane going to do?”

“Rest,” Kurogane says. Exhaustion is already dragging him down like weights around his ankles. He moves away from the bed, setting up his makeshift shikibuton on the floor once more and lying down. His ribs protest at the movement, but it's not bad once he's lying still. “Wake me if anything happens.”

“Yes,” Mokona says, and then Kurogane is asleep.


	3. Blood Moon

Kurogane wakes with the wan, foggy morning light filling his room like an unwelcome guest. As expected, he’s more sore today than he was yesterday, and he bites back a groan as he gets up from his bed. Mokona is nowhere to be found, which means it’s still watching Fai, and Kurogane has some moments to himself. He takes his time stretching, working out some of the stiffness from his limbs and torso. He has a feeling that tonight will bring another fight, and the wolf – _Ashura_ – is no pushover.

After stretching, Kurogane goes to look out the window. The unnatural fog from last night has thinned out slightly, and he can see wisps of it blowing away in the light breeze. The air still shimmers with power. Is that a side effect of Ashura’s curse? Or is it something else?

He can’t answer those questions by standing around. With a sigh, Kurogane dresses, replaces the covers on the bed, and heads out to start his day. On the way out of his room, he picks up the bottle of vodka he’d used as a makeshift ice pack last night. It could make a decent peace offering, maybe, though he isn’t sure he should encourage Fai’s reliance on alcohol.

Not that he cares. Not that it matters.

The house seems empty even though it’s late morning, but the ladder leading up to the attic studio is down and the white bun meets him in the hall. “Fai didn’t go to sleep,” it says, its expression uncharacteristically grave. “Fai has been painting all night.”

Well, it’s better Fai is holed up in his attic studio than running around trying to get in Kurogane’s way. “Hn,” Kurogane says, deciding he’ll worry about that later. He makes his way downstairs instead, returning the bottle to its place in the freezer. Then he spends some time rooting around the cupboards to cobble together a breakfast of unfamiliar, too-sweet food. It feels like another violation of Fai’s privacy. These things keep piling up.

Not that it matters. This will all be done with soon enough; Kurogane imagines he can already feel the threads of hitsuzen moving him inevitably towards the conclusion of this drama. It’s not a feeling he likes, but things are already so messy that he’s looking forward to ending. To leaving Kalsoy. To abandoning Fai to his lonely paintings in a lonely house.

He’s not going to think about that right now. Instead, figuring that Fai can be safely left alone right now, Kurogane grabs Mokona and heads into down the hill, using the brisk walk to clear his head.

Trøllanes is tiny and barely worthy of being called a “town” – it’s more like a haphazard collection of tiny, brightly-colored houses with a very small general goods store. Kurogane met Olli, the grocer and, apparently, Fai’s only connection to the outside world, the other day. As the bell jingles on the door to announce Kurogane’s arrival, Olli looks up with a wary look that soon morphs into a friendly smile.

“Oh, it’s you, tourist!” he says. “How is Kalsoy treating you? I’m surprised you’ve stayed so long, on an off-season. And how’s everything up on the hill?”

That’s a good question. “I appreciate the hospitality,” Kurogane says, which is not untrue. “I was coming to ask– the fog has been so thick the past few nights, and I was worried. Has anything else happened in town?”

Olli strokes his brown beard and takes a few moments to consider that, which is a good sign; if someone had disappeared recently, it would be the first thing on his mind. “Hilde says she hears strange noises on foggy nights, but that’s just Hilde,” he says. “Nothing else has happened, thankfully. We’ve all been staying indoors at night. I hope you have too, tourist.” He nods at Kurogane. “This isn’t the best time for a long stay.”

“Hn.” Kurogane’s eyes move away from Olli as he glances over the shelves. Mokona’s translation power works on speech, but the lettering on these packages is unfamiliar scribbles to him. “I thought I’d get some groceries to bring back to the house,” he says without thinking. “Do you know what that guy usually gets?”

“Who, Fai? Yes,” Olli says, raising his eyebrows a bit. “I suppose if he’s feeding you, you’re going through it twice as fast.” He gives a belly laugh. “I’ll pack up a box.”

“I’ll come back for it,” Kurogane says. “Thank you.”

As they leave the store, Mokona bounces on his shoulder. “Kurogane is bringing Fai presents! Kurogane is so _nice_~!” it says in a singsong voice.

“_Tch_,” Kurogane says and resists the urge to grab Mokona and throw it. Everyone talks in this small town, and he doesn’t want to become an object of suspicion. So he ignores the white bun – and the way it’s started humming to itself – as he walks through town and down the cliffside path to the beach where he saw Ashura last night. He’s left his neon green jacket at the house, and instead he pulls his usual cloak from his pocket and throws it around his shoulders. He doesn’t want to attract attention from any overeager search parties today.

As luck or hitsuzen would have it, the beach is empty today aside from a handful of puffins and gulls. The sand has already been smoothed out by wind and waves, and there’s no sign of the battle that took place here. Although the clouds are low, they’re thin, and the stifling fog has cleared. “White bun,” Kurogane says as he looks around. “Can you sense anything?”

Mokona hops off Kurogane’s shoulder and down to the beach, leaving rabbit-like footprints as it hops closer towards the ocean and turns from one side to the other. Its eyes open to thin slits. “Mokona can sense… something. But it’s very faint.”

“More power?” Kurogane is already rolling up his sleeve and pulling out his silver knife. He’s eager enough to get this over with that he doesn’t even complain as he reopens the cut in his arm. Three drops of blood are sucked into Mokona’s vortex, and then Mokona’s eyes open wide.

“Ashura,” it says. “Coming from there.” It points over the rocky shoreline to where the cliffs get steeper and the beach recedes.

Kurogane squints where Mokona is pointing, then gives a grunt of affirmation. He steps forward, intending to rinse the knife in seawater, but thinks better of it when he sees the oily, iridescent sheen of power clinging to the waves. Instead, he wipes the knife on his thigh and puts it away. “Alright,” he says as Mokona hops back up onto his shoulder, and sets off across the beach.

The trek is long and unpleasant. The rocky beach grows even rockier and more inhospitable, until Kurogane is climbing around fallen boulders and tidal pools, sticking close to the cliff. The unhealthy oil slick power grows thicker on the rocks and the waves as Kurogane progresses, so strong in his Sight that he keeps double-checking to make sure the rocks aren’t as slippery as they look.

Soon he’s practically clinging to the steeply sloping cliff wall as he makes his way around the edge of the island, the sea pounding the rocks directly beneath his feet. This must be low tide, because the high tide mark is about eye-level with him, and the rocks are covered with all kinds of slimy sea life that makes his trek more difficult.

“Wait,” Mokona says and Kurogane freezes. It’s on his shoulder, and from the corner of his eye he can see its eyes open as it stares ahead. “It’s here.”

“What?” There’s nothing here but a cliff face.

“_Here_,” Mokona insists, and bounds to Kurogane’s hand, pointing one stubby white arm at a part of the cliff face that looks no different from the area around it. “This is where it’s coming from.”

Kurogane moves a bit closer, touching the rock where Mokona indicates. It’s solid. He can’t pass through it. But as he stares, squinting a bit, he starts Seeing the ways that this part of the cliff doesn’t quite line up with the rest. The rocks look mostly the same in terms of color and texture, but the _feeling_ is different. Less solid. And as he stays where he is, taking in the cliff in front of him, he starts to See the way that power moves across its surface. The dark iridescence oozes down the rocks here, slowly but inexorably washing into the waves. And the ocean takes it and absorbs it, pushes it up against the rocks with the tide and into the wind with its salt spray, and into the earth and air until it’s everywhere, until this whole area of the island is permeated with something fundamentally _wrong_.

Kurogane remains in place, staring, until his arms and bruised ribs start to ache, and then he lets out a long, slow breath. “This isn’t just Ashura, is it?” he asks Mokona.

The white bun has been staring at the cliff wall too, its expression grave, and now it shakes its head. “Mokona senses something bad. In there,” it says.

“This wall. Can you get through it?” Kurogane knows Mokona has a bag of tricks from Yuuko, and one of Mokona’s 108 secret techniques is breaking barriers. But this isn’t like any ward Kurogane has ever seen.

And sure enough, Mokona shakes its head again. “It’s the same kind of power that holds up Fai’s geas,” it offers. “And Mokona doesn’t know how to break that. Yuuko would.”

“For a price,” Kurogane grouses, and anyway, he can’t pay the price to talk to Yuuko here, not when he’s clinging to the cliff wall like a barnacle. “Remember where this is,” he tells Mokona and starts shuffling back the way he came. By the time he’s off the cliff and scrambling over boulders once more, the tide has risen enough to cover up more of the shore, and it takes longer for him to get back onto the relatively solid beach.

“We should ask the idiot about it,” Kurogane says when he’s finally heading back up the path towards Trøllanes. His ribs and shoulders ache from the unexpected exertion, and his cloak, which he’s bundled into a pocket, is crusted with salt from the endless sea spray. “If it’s the same power that’s on him. Think it’s Ashura’s fault?”

“Maybe,” Mokona allows.

That would be the neat, fairytale ending for this story – all wrapped up and tied with a bow. Kurogane has a feeling it’s wishful thinking. The geas, after all, can’t bind Fai without his consent. If there’s a crime here, Fai, with his isolation and his paintings and his awful sweet food, is complicit.

Kurogane speeds up on the path until his thighs burn with exertion. When he makes it back to Olli’s grocery store, he’s sweating.

“Tourist!” Olli says, welcoming him in with an expansive gesture. Already a big man, Olli appears even bigger in his friendliness. “You’re back. It looks like you had a workout.”

“I walked down to the beach and back,” Kurogane says, trying to tone down his instinct to react to Olli’s friendliness with anger or suspicion. “Are the groceries ready?”

Olli gestures to a box on the counter. “Should I add this to Fai’s tab, or…?” he asks, clearly being careful not to assume.

Kurogane doesn’t understand all this delicacy about money; a debt is a debt, after all. He pulls out the billfold he’d found in his backpack and looks through it, handing Olli the bill with the most numbers on it. “Is this enough?”

“More than enough.” Olli takes the bill. “Let me get your change.”

If things go as planned, Kurogane won’t have much need of this money for longer. In fact, he doesn’t even know if it’s real money – like most of the things he’s received from Yuuko, the billfold shimmers with a faint silver glow in his Sight. “Keep it,” he says, hefting the box. It’s got bread, pasta and some other essentials, and Kurogane can see a bottle of whiskey tucked away in the package.

Olli’s eyes widen slightly. “Are you sure? Money is money, tourist.”

Except when it’s not, Kurogane thinks. Except when it’s a poor substitute for the real and occasionally deadly exchanges made every day In-Between. “It’s fine,” he says, and leaves the store.

*

Coming up to the house on the hill, Kurogane senses something is wrong before he can see what’s amiss. There’s a heaviness to the air, and the smell of the ocean is strong, as if he’s standing on the waves and the briny air is burning the back of his mouth.

“Kuro,” Mokona says. It’s picked up bad habits from Fai, Kurogane thinks. “There’s something here.”

Kurogane grunts in response and slows his steps as he comes up towards the house. The front door is shut. He’d removed his ward from the door when he’d come back from his fight with the wolf on the beach, but now he thinks he should have let it stay. He places the box of groceries on the front step.

“White bun. Can you sense anything coming from inside?”

Mokona’s eyes open to slits. “Power,” it says. “Like last night.” _Ashura_, Kurogane thinks, and Mokona’s thoughts apparently follow in the same direction: “Do you think Fai’s okay?”

Kurogane doesn’t answer. Instead, he moves around the side of the house, keeping low as he peeks into all the windows. The kitchen is empty. So are the living room and the hallway and the small bathroom. In the worst case scenario, the whole house is empty, and Ashura has spirited Fai off, willingly or not, to parts unknown, and Kurogane is one step from failing this whole assignment.

He won’t allow this to be the worst case scenario.

The white bun clings to his shoulder as he unlocks the door, stepping around the abandoned groceries and letting himself into the house. Here, the smell of brine and mud and old, dead things from the seafloor is even stronger, almost choking. Kurogane swallows against rising bile and heads to the stairs, leaving his shoes on.

There are voices coming from upstairs.

“Please,” Fai is saying. “If you talk– he _knows_ things, Ashura. He might be able to help you. _Us_.”

“You don’t understand,” an unfamiliar voice replies. It’s Ashura, Kurogane knows, because the deep, mellifluous tone has echoes of darkness in it, of the crushing, abyssal pressure miles under the surface of the waves. It sends a shiver up Kurogane’s spine, and Mokona huddles against Kurogane’s neck.

Kurogane flexes his hand, feeling Tomoyo’s geas tingle against his palm, and summons Ginryuu. It appears in his hand with a flicker of power.

“_You_ don’t understand! A child is missing, Ashura, someone’s _daughter_! And you _promised_–”

As long as Fai keeps Ashura distracted, Kurogane will have the advantage in this fight. He steps carefully onto the staircase… and the aged wood immediately creaks under his weight.

“What’s that?”

And suddenly, there’s a nightmare standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at Kurogane.

Ashura is no longer wearing his wolf form from last night. Instead, he appears as a tall, thin man with long, dark hair, looking down at Kurogane with an expression of cool disdain. He’s hunched slightly, as though favoring an old wound, and one of his arms hangs limply at his side. But when Kurogane blinks, in the moments just before and after he opens his eyes, he Sees through whatever geas Ashura is using to change his appearance. Underneath, Ashura is skinless, his coral bones bound together by tendons without flesh. His mouth is huge and gaping, with long needle-like teeth jutting from his jaw, and his eyes are flat and white. Instead of hair, his head is crowned with ropes of seaweed that drip with oily, polluted power.

And Kurogane opens his eyes all the way, and Ashura is a man again, looking him over with disdain. “This is your knight in shining armor, Fai? Your soldier of the Moon Court who will solve all of our problems? He is an angry child.”

Ashura’s voice sounds almost normal, but when he speaks Kurogane feels a pressure in his chest, like Ashura is sucking all the air out of the room, like he’s sinking under thousands of pounds of water. There is power here that Kurogane doesn’t understand, and it would be best to get this over with as soon as possible. He raises his sword and shifts his weight forward.

And then Fai shoves past Ashura, nearly tripping over himself as he stumbles down a few steps and holds out his arms. “Stop it!” There are dark circles under his eyes and he’s wearing the same pajamas he was wearing yesterday. His feet are bare and his hair is a mess, but his geas flares bright behind him as he faces down Kurogane. “Don’t. We have to talk.”

Kurogane can see Ashura at the top of the stairs, his face clearly visible over Fai’s head. Ashura’s eyes – alternately human and brown in Kurogane’s normal vision, white and pearlescent and staring in his Sight – meet Kurogane’s. He smiles, his mouth stretching wide and revealing even more long, needle-like teeth crowded in his jaw.

Kurogane’s grip tightens on his sword before he forces himself to relax, to center his weight and be ready for whatever is coming. “Get out of the way, idiot,” he says. Ashura won’t hesitate to go through Fai to get to Kurogane if he feels he has to. That much is clear on Ashura’s face.

“No,” Fai says, facing him down. “You’re here to fix things. So _listen_ to us, before you use that sword.” His blue eyes are clear and determined as he looks at Kurogane. This is the worst possible moment for Fai to grow a spine, and yet…

And yet, Kurogane can’t help but respect him for it.

Behind him, Ashura says, “Fai. I told you already that this will not work. There is only one way to end the curse.”

“You don’t _know_ that,” Fai insists, twisting around to look up at Ashura. Kurogane wonders what he’s seeing, wonders if he senses the wrongness that’s practically choking them now. “You told me the Courts are powerful. They could do something–”

“I am long exiled from the Courts,” Ashura snaps. “They will not lift a finger. Nor will that cursed In-Between Witch. I have _asked_, child. But this is a debt and a bond that is not so easy to sever.” Ashura’s gaze hasn’t left Kurogane. “You see my true form, knight. Is this something that either Court could remedy?”

Kurogane doesn’t know. Frankly, he doesn’t care. He shifts his weight a little more, taking his foot off the step so that he’s balanced well in case Ashura tries anything funny.

“Kuro.” Fai turns to him. “I know– I know wishes have prices. There has to be _some_ price to end this. And I’ll pay it. Whatever it is, I can–”

“No,” Kurogane says, cutting Fai off and watching his expression change from desperation to anger.

“Kurogane,” Fai says, taking a step down the stairs like he’s planning his own attack.

“Don’t,” Kurogane says, as the pressure in the air around them increases. He feels like he’s being squeezed from all directions, and it’s getting difficult to draw breath. Is this simply an effect of Ashura’s proximity? Fai looks unbothered – maybe it’s the geas. Maybe it’s because Fai isn’t thinking of anything right now aside from how to be the biggest idiot possible.

“It’s time you started worrying for yourself, my child,” Ashura says, the abyssal depth in his voice growing louder. His human disguise is dissolving too; his teeth are getting longer as he speaks and his skin his receding. There’s a puddle of brine and mud and iridescent pollution on the floor around his feet. “Or do you think the Courts will be so friendly to you, once they know who you are, what you’ve done?”

Fai’s eyes widen and he turns to look at Ashura, stumbling back another step as he, possibly for the first time, sees beneath Ashura’s human disguise. “What–”

“Your wish is as impossible as mine was,” Ashura says, looking at Fai as he stretches his mouth in a wide and terrible smile. And then he lifts his gaze to Kurogane again. “I will meet you on my own terms, Knight of the Moon Court. When the moon is high and the tide is low. Fai can break the barrier.” And then he surges forward.

Kurogane raises his sword, but Ashura isn’t moving to attack him. Instead, Ashura shoves Fai hard in the back, sending him tumbling down the stairs. Kurogane barely has time to throw Ginryuu to the side before Fai is colliding with him, the force of his fall sending them both tumbling back in a confused tangle of limbs. Without thinking, Kurogane wraps his arms around Fai and takes the brunt of the fall, his teeth jolting together as his back hits the wall.

There’s a final rush of foul sea air and then the pressure on Kurogane’s chest finally eases, a sure sign as any that Ashura is gone. He takes one breath and then another, his already sore ribs protesting at this new abuse, and leans his head back against the wall. He takes a moment to recenter himself and push away all the anger and confusion and frustration that’s boiling up in his chest.

“Mokona doesn’t like Ashura,” Mokona says in a small voice from where it’s clinging to the collar of Kurogane’s coat.

Kurogane huffs a laugh, which makes his ribs protest once more, and shifts to sit up a bit. Fai is still in his arms, and Kurogane moves him a bit to check if he’s conscious. His eyes are wide open and he’s clutching Kurogane’s arms, taking quick and shallow breaths. Panicking.

“Idiot,” Kurogane says, and then, “_Fai_. Snap out of it.” He shakes him a little and Fai blinks, his gaze snapping to Kurogane’s face. “Come on,” Kurogane says, pulling Fai up a little straighter. “Breathe with me. In.” He inhales. “Out.” He exhales.

It takes some time, but with Kurogane’s guidance Fai’s breathing eventually slows to the point where he’s not in immediate danger of fainting. After a few more moments, Fai’s fingers finally relax and he slumps away from Kurogane. He turns his face away too, and refuses to meet Kurogane’s eyes.

Kurogane can deal with that. He shifts, getting his feet under him and standing up, and then pulls Fai to his feet, heedless of the stiffness of his shoulders and jaw and the pain in his ribs. Fai feels almost too light in Kurogane’s arms as he maneuvers him into the kitchen and into a chair. Then he goes back into the hall to retrieve Ginryuu, putting the sword in its sheath and belting it around his waist. There’s no point in being subtle about it now, and he wants his weapon close.

When he returns to the kitchen, Fai hasn’t moved from his seat. “Drinks,” he says as Kurogane comes into view, the first words he’s uttered since Ashura left.

“No.” Kurogane takes a few steps back and crosses his arms. “Do you _know_ what an idiotic stunt you pulled? He went right through you.”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Fai says. It’s both stubborn and untrue; Kurogane saw the way that Fai winced when he got to his feet, and he imagines there’s quite a bruise blossoming on his skinny back right now. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks up at Kurogane – first at Ginryuu’s silver dragon hilt, and then at Kurogane’s powerful arms, and then up at Kurogane’s face. “I’m not going to tell you where he’s gone.”

“Do you _want_ more people to die?” Kurogane asks, incredulously.

Fai looks torn. “No,” he says. “But – he saved me. He _raised_ me. He–”

“He killed six people,” Kurogane says without mercy. They’ve had this argument already, in this very spot in the small hours of the morning. If nothing about meeting with Ashura has changed Fai’s mind, then it’s probably a lost cause. Kurogane ignores the frustration in his chest, his very real disappointment. “But it’s your choice.” He shrugs and turns away to head up to his room. Ashura will probably want to meet him at that strange spot in the cliffs. He can ask Yuuko for something to break the barrier, and pay the price accordingly. This has gone on long enough, and Ashura can’t be left alone.

He’s almost out of the kitchen when Fai speaks again, his voice small. “Aren’t you going to try to get me to do what you want?”

“What?” Kurogane turns to look at Fai, who still has his arms wrapped around himself. He’s looking up at Kurogane with wide blue eyes.

“You could make me,” Fai says. “With your,” he gestures to Ginryuu at Kurogane’s hip. “You’re strong. You know about magic. I probably wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

_It’s not magic_, Kurogane wants to say, but that’s a discussion for a different time. Instead, he just blinks and then stares. “You think I’m going to force it out of you? Force you to go meet him?”

Fai gives him a mulish look, his jaw set.

“_Idiot_. This,” he touches Ginryuu’s silver dragon hilt, “I only draw when I’m prepared to kill. And I don’t _torture_ people, even when they’re as annoying as you.”

“Ashura said that the Moon Court would use me,” Fai says. “That they could tear me apart.”

“Ashura is a liar,” Kurogane says immediately. “And I’m not the Moon Court, idiot. I’m me.”

Fai looks at him, and Kurogane meets his gaze fearlessly. There’s a moment of silence between them, and then Fai slumps, letting out a breath, almost a laugh, as he reaches up to run a shaking hand over his face. “You’re impossible,” he says. And then he straightens up again, his thin shoulders tense and his expression determined. “I’ll help you.”

*

“I’m half human,” Fai says out of the blue. They’ve recovered somewhat from Ashura’s visit – Fai took a shower, while Kurogane retrieved the groceries he’d left out on the porch. Now Fai has something cooking in a pot on the stove, stirring it periodically between sips from the bottle of whiskey that Olli tucked into his groceries.

Kurogane isn’t particularly hungry and he imagines that Fai’s not either, but it’s something to do with his hands. Kurogane understands that; he’s got Ginryuu across his lap and is sharpening it methodically at the kitchen table. When Fai speaks, he stops his work and looks up. “Half?”

“My mother was… something else. Ashura tells me that she was one of his cousins, another queen of the sea. She just looked like my mother, though.” He stares absently at whatever meal he has bubbling on the stove. “I don’t know how she met my father. I like to think they were happy at the beginning, but then she had us, and… she wasn’t so happy anymore.”

Half-human children are rare, and in the few examples Kurogane can think of, they only come into being after a price has been paid. “Us?” he asks.

Fai’s eyes remain resolutely on the pot on the stove. “My twin brother and I,” he says.

There is a whole world of emotion in that statement, but Fai is holding himself in place like he’s barely resisting the urge to run away from this entire conversation. Kurogane doesn’t press. “Mm.”

Fai looks like he’s waiting for a follow-up, but when none is forthcoming, he relaxes slightly, shooting Kurogane a sidelong glance. “My mother killed herself,” he says after a moment. “Somehow. My father said she drowned herself because of us. Even though she was a queen, and she had powers.”

Kurogane doesn’t need Yuuko to tell him that the price for making a child is too high for some to pay. He looks away.

”And then,” Fai continues implacably, “in a madness of grief, my father tried to drown us as well, to bring back the woman he loved. Ashura was barely in time, but he saved me. And he brought me here. And I’ve been here ever since.”

“How old were you?” Kurogane asks, even though he almost already knows.

“Eight,” Fai says, like Kurogane had expected. He thinks of eight-year-old twins, blonde and blue eyed, clinging to each other while they’re menaced by a shadowy figure who once was their father. He remembers of another eight-year-old boy in the wreckage of his parents’ shrine, facing a creature with too many teeth and a mouth dripping with blood. The things that happen to eight-year-old boys, Kurogane thinks. Only this boy didn’t have Yuuko Ichihara to sweep him up and into the relative safety of the Moon Court. Instead, he’d remained in the murky In-Between, with an equally murky guardian.

“Thank you,” Kurogane says after a few moments, because he can’t think of anything else to say. “For trusting me.”

Fai’s mouth twists into a thin, unhappy line. “I just– you should probably know about these things. Before we go. That’s all.”

Fai is silent for a long time after that. The only sounds in the kitchen are the bubbling from the pot on the stove, which is slowly filling the kitchen with a savory, mouthwatering scent, and the rhythmic scrape of Kurogane’s whetstone against his sword. Time passes. When Ginryuu has been sharpened to his satisfaction, he cleans the blade and the hilt, and then sheathes it.

“So,” Kurogane says finally as he washes his hands at the kitchen sink. Fai is leaning against the counter by the stove, sipping whiskey from the bottle, which is running dangerously low. “You have powers, then, if you’re half Folk. Even if you don’t have the Sight.”

“I gave that up,” Fai says as if anything were that simple. He opens one long-fingered hand and stares at his palm. “What was the point, if it couldn’t save anyone? I left most of it, and the rest Ashura bound up for me.”

“The geas on your back,” Kurogane says, and Fai nods miserably. “Do you know how to break it?”

“No,” Fai says and meets Kurogane’s eyes briefly before putting the bottle back on the counter. Then, in a fluid motion, he grabs the hem of his sweater – at least he’s out of pajamas now – and pulls it up over his head. He’s bare-chested underneath, and before Kurogane can react, Fai turns around to show his back. “Can you see it?”

“Yes,” Kurogane says. The geas looks just like it did in Mokona’s image, all swooping elegant lines pressed into Fai’s skin. The markings glow gold and almost shimmer with the small movements of Fai’s ribs as he breathes.

“Oh, you can?” Fai takes a quick breath and the lines on his back shift as he crosses his arms over his chest, hugging the sweater to himself. His hair brushes the nape of his neck, where it’s dried in soft waves. His shoulder blades, sticking out, cast small shadows on his skin. “I can’t. Sometimes I almost forget it’s there.”

Kurogane wants to reach out, to touch. He’s lifting his hand and Fai is leaning back just slightly, unconsciously, almost as if he knows what Kurogane is about to do and he’s welcoming it. Though Fai’s the one leaning, with each movement forward Kurogane feels like a plant growing towards the light. And then–

“Yuuko said that Fai is the one who is holding that geas up,” Mokona pipes up, speaking for the first time in a few hours, and both Fai and Kurogane startle. Kurogane yanks his hand back from where it’s almost reached Fai’s bare back.

Fai takes a large step, twisting away from him and hitting his hip against the counter. “Ow!”

“Idiot,” Kurogane says, moving closer but stopping so that he’s just hovering at Fai’s side.

Fai shifts back again, out of reach, and yanks his sweater back on. “I’m fine.” His gaze darts around, avoiding Kurogane, before it fixes on Mokona at the table. “Who’s Yuuko?”

“Yuuko is Kurogane’s boss!” Mokona says, either unable or unwilling to acknowledge the suddenly tense atmosphere.

“Shut up, white bun,” Kurogane says and grabs for Fai’s whiskey bottle, taking a swig of it because he might as well. Fai doesn’t comment, just holds out his hand to take the bottle after Kurogane, so that he can have another, longer drink. “She’s the In-Between Witch of Dimensions. The one who sent me here.”

“Ah. And she said,” Fai frowns suddenly. “You talked to her about me?”

“Not–” Kurogane shifts, defensive and more than a little guilty. “About your geas. She said that it’s something that would only apply with your consent. Which, uh, probably means that if you want it off, you could.” He’s talking a little too quickly, but the last thing he wants is for Mokona to interject and tell Fai all about Kurogane had it spy on him for most of the day before.

Fai gives him a look, but doesn’t press. “How?”

“Think about it,” Kurogane offers.

Fai continues to look skeptical, like he’s not sure whether Kurogane is playing a trick on him, but puts the whiskey down and closes his eyes. “I’m thinking about it.”

Nothing happens. Kurogane frowns.

“Try this,” Mokona says, hopping over to the counter. The jewel in its forehead glows, and then it’s projecting the image that it showed Yuuko yesterday – Fai in his room, lifting up his pajama shirt.

Internally, Kurogane cringes. But as Fai leans close, he doesn’t seem to notice where or when this image was taken. Instead, he’s absorbed by the golden lines running across his back. “_That’s _what it looks like?” he asks, reaching out to touch. His finger slips through the projection without affecting it. “It’s beautiful.”

“Fai should think about that,” the white bun suggests.

“Think about taking it off,” Kurogane adds and takes a small step back as Fai closes his eyes again.

Time passes, seconds stretching into minutes. A crease appears between Fai’s brows as he begins to frown. Kurogane is about to call the whole thing off – and then the geas flares bright gold on Fai’s back. Mokona’s eyes go wide as they always do in the presence of strong power, and Kurogane Sees the elaborate lines peel off Fai’s back, enlarging and hovering in the air above them, before dissolving, bathing Fai in a shower of gold.

Fai crumples to the ground.

Kurogane dives forward to catch him and keep him from hitting the ground. Fai is limp in his arms, and this time Kurogane manhandles him to the couch to lie down. As his head touches the pillow, Fai’s eyes flutter open.

“Did that– did it work?” he asks faintly, and then his eyes widen and his mouth opens slightly. “Kuro. You’re glowing.” He reaches up and touches the silver moon talisman, which is hidden behind Kurogane’s shirt.

“So are you,” Kurogane says dumbly, because now that he looks, he can see the faint golden glow of the dissolved geas has settled in Fai’s hair, on his skin, permeating every part of his body. It’s just the slightest shimmer, but it’s entrancing.

Fai meets his eyes, his lips parting with the beginning of a question. Then he turns, distracted. “Your hand!” He grabs Kurogane’s right hand from where it’s braced against his shoulder, lifting it up and turning it over to examine it. Kurogane’s skin breaks out into goosebumps when Fai, with the delight of a child, starts tracing the fine lines of Tomoyo’s geas on his palm.

“Fai broke the geas!” Mokona cheers from behind them, hopping into view.

Fai’s eyes widen again and he shifts to sit up, dropping Kurogane’s hand. “_That’s_ what you look like?” he asks as he stares.

Kurogane looks from Mokona to Fai. “What did you see before?”

“A… talking rabbit,” Fai says, still staring.

“Mokona looks like Mokona!” the white bun says with a laugh, hopping up onto the couch and then snuggling itself into the crook of Fai’s neck. Fai shies away for a moment, then relaxes, reaching up and tentatively stroking Mokona’s head with a finger. When Mokona makes a happy-sounding noise, Fai relaxes against the couch cushions, continuing to pet the white bun as he looks around the room.

Kurogane tries to imagine what he’s Seeing. Not much would change, he thinks as Fai’s gaze lands on him. Abruptly, he realizes how close he’s standing and leans back slightly.

“I made stew,” Fai says, still watching him. “It should be ready to eat now, if you’re hungry. And then…” He glances out the window, where darkness has already fallen. “The low tide is around midnight, so… we should start thinking about going outside.” His mouth firms up again into an unhappy line.

That’s right. The most difficult part of this assignment is coming up fast. “How long has it been since you’ve been outside?” he asks, watching as Fai’s gaze slides away from his.

There’s a pause as Fai continues to pet Mokona, and then he takes a breath and says, “Four years, give or take.” He turns to give Kurogane a faint smile that’s just as false as any of the wide grins that he’s given Kurogane before. “I’ll work up to it.”

*

The rest of the evening passes amicably. They eat stew while Mokona regales Fai with stories of the Moon Court. Fai doesn’t believe half of them, Kurogane can tell, but he laughs along and eventually seems to enjoy himself. Kurogane checks his things, making sure he has his silver knife, Yuuko’s wards, incense for purification. He looks for something to help protect Fai, but all he has is silver, and he doesn’t know how that might affect Fai’s half-Folk power, so he decides against it. Things will be difficult enough without adding more complications to the mix. Meanwhile, Fai uses his laptop computer to double check the tides, while Kurogane contemplates how quickly technology has changed from what he recognizes. It looks like the tide will be lowest at half-past midnight, so they start towards the cliffs around ten p.m.

Fai balks at the doorstep. He stops so quickly that he rocks back with the force of it, looking like he’s hit some invisible wall, and Kurogane actually looks around for obstructions before Fai says, “I– give me a minute.” He takes a breath.

Maybe they should have started out earlier, Kurogane thinks, intensely aware of the waning moon, still almost full, that’s climbing up into the clear sky.

“I just,” Fai begins, following Kurogane’s gaze with some trepidation. “It’s so _big_. Everywhere.”

Kurogane thinks of the paintings in Fai’s studio – the vastness of sea and sky, confined in a tiny canvas. Is that his way of managing his fear? Kurogane deals with his own fears by fighting and killing the things that would eat him. You can’t fight or kill the ocean, but you can capture it, at least in a picture. He sighs and unclasps his cloak from his shoulders, throwing it over Fai’s head. “Here.”

Fai makes a noise of protest as the thick fabric covers his face, but he seems to get the idea. He wraps the cloak around his shoulders and pulls the hood up over his face. It seems to help – he starts standing a bit straighter, and even steps across the threshold. And then he freezes up again, reaching out a hand. “Kuro…”

Kurogane is there before Fai can say anything, providing support at Fai’s side and letting him grab his arm. And that’s how they make it off the doorstep, Kurogane locking up behind them before guiding Fai slowly down the hill.

Fai mostly focuses on his feet as he takes one step after another, his shoulders hunched and his fingers digging into Kurogane’s arm. He’s holding so tightly that Kurogane will be surprised if he _doesn’t_ leave bruises.

They reach the path down the cliff, and Fai balks again. He has to take several deep breaths and wrap both hands around Kurogane’s arm like it’s an anchor. Mokona hops from Kurogane’s shoulder to Fai’s, offering wordless comfort as they stand there.

A few minutes pass. Kurogane is weighing the pros and cons of asking Fai to hurry up, when Fai says, “You must think I’m awfully weak.”

Kurogane, who hasn’t actually thought anything of the sort, says, “What?”

“Ashura said you’re a knight or, or something.” Fai still hasn’t worked up the ability to look up at Kurogane and presumably, the sky beyond him. He directs this comment to Kurogane’s chest. “And you have your sword, and you’re walking straight into a fight. And I’m… I can’t even walk out my door without holding onto you like a barnacle.” Fai laughs, though it sounds pained.

“Fai is brave!” Mokona insists from its place on Fai’s shoulder. “Fai is coming with us even though he’s scared!”

“But I had to come,” Fai says.

“You didn’t.” Kurogane’s tone must be harsher than usual, because Fai gives him a startled look before flinching away and looking at the ground again, his grip tightening on Kurogane’s arm.

“I did.”

“No, you didn’t.” Fai doesn’t get to pretend that he had no choice in the matter, doesn’t get to act like Kurogane dragged him out here kicking and screaming. “You could have left me on the street. You could have let me figure this out by myself. You weren’t forced into anything. This is a choice that you made, and if you keep going from here, that’s another choice.” And on and on, building a life of choices, of debt and repayment and hitsuzen that connects to every other creature on earth. “So make it.”

Kurogane feels Fai’s sharp intake of breath against his arm. Fai glances up at him, his eyes flashing quick and blue in Kurogane’s vision before he lowers his gaze again. And he steps forward.

Their progress down the path is slow but steady. Kurogane goes in front, shuffling almost sideways to accommodate Fai against his side. As the challenge of steep and slightly rocky path occupies more of his concentration, Fai’s grip slowly loosens, and Kurogane feels the circulation begin to return to his arm. He’s briefly thankful that he put Fai on his left side; he wants his sword arm to be as free and limber as possible.

The sound of the ocean grows louder the further down they get, and Fai says, “I haven’t been this close to the water in… ten years, maybe. Not here.” But he’s still putting one foot in front of the other.

“Don’t you paint it?”

“I don’t need to _see_ it to know what it looks like,” Fai says dryly, and they’re on the beach. Fai is looking down at his feet as he stands in the rocky pebbles. He keeps his entire face averted from the ocean.

Kurogane looks out across the waves to the north, where the cliff grows steeper and curves around the side of the island. He tries to picture Fai clinging to a cliff and moving, crablike, towards the barrier. It’s impossible. “Hey,” he says, nudging Fai as gently as possible. “We have to go around that way.”

Fai looks up, his grip tightening once more on Kurogane’s arm, and squints to follow where Kurogane is pointing. Then he looks down. “I– Kuro, I don’t think I can do that.”

“You could if you used your power,” Kurogane says with confidence he doesn’t quite feel.

Fai hazards another glance at the scene before them: the beach growing steeper and turning into a cliff, on one side; the waves pounding ceaselessly against the rocks, on the other. “I told you,” he says, his voice only trembling slightly. “I gave it up. I left it.”

“You can’t just _leave_ that somewhere,” Kurogane says. Power isn’t something you can pick up and put down at will. It’s everywhere – in the sea, in the blood, in rocks and air and living things. And the Folk are those creatures who have the ability to harness that power, to make into the weight that lets their choices leave imprints on the world. If Fai had power once, he will have it again. Maybe they just need to pay a price…

“Well, I did,” Fai says, that mulish stubbornness creeping into his tone again. “I poured it all out of me.”

“Let go of my arm.” Kurogane shifts, trying to loosen Fai’s grip. “Hold onto my jacket or something.”

Fai transfers one hand and then the other from Kurogane’s arm to his jacket, gripping the fabric so tightly his knuckles go white. Then he asks, “Why?”

Kurogane is yanking up his sleeve and pulling the silver knife from his pocket. “You know where power comes from, don’t you?”

“What?” Fai is looking between his knife and his arm, his expression growing increasingly alarmed. “What are you doing?”

“You could probably channel something from the ocean,” Kurogane says. “Since that’s where your mother came from. But blood is faster, and it works for everybody. I’m paying your price.”

“_What_?” Fai says again, backing up as far as he can while still tethered to Kurogane’s jacket.

“Kurogane does this for Mokona too!” the white bun says, hopping from Fai’s shoulder to Kurogane’s. It probably means to be comforting, but Fai turns towards it with a horrified gaze. “Kurogane’s blood is very pure. You can do a lot with it!”

Kurogane lifts the knife to his forearm, just below the jacket sleeve. “You broke your geas. Now think about it. Feel your power.” And he slides the knife across his skin.

Fai cries out in protest, then freezes as fat drops of blood begin to well up in the cut. His pupils narrow, catlike, and he breathes in through his mouth, focusing in on Kurogane’s arm with laser-like intensity.

Kurogane has never done this before for anything but Mokona, and it’s unsettling, watching Fai turn into a predator. With that gaze on him, he’s suddenly a child again, stumbling into his parent’s house, listening to the horrible wet ripping, sucking noises coming from the courtyard. _Mom?_ he’d called. _Dad?_ But no one had answered, even as the shadows moved and Kurogane saw–

“Kuro?” Fai’s eyes are strange and his canines are slightly elongated, but he’s holding back from feeding, looking concerned.

Kurogane doesn’t want to know what kind of expression is on his face to make Fai look at him that way. He looks away, fixing his eyes on the horizon. “Just drink.”

He feels rather than see Fai move forward, and suddenly his arm is being cradled in both of Fai’s hands as Fai lowers his head to drink. It… doesn’t hurt, and that makes it almost worse as Fai’s tongue laves over his cut, as he feels the sharp teeth graze his skin and then puncture his arm, creating another wound from which to draw blood.

Kurogane doesn’t know how long Fai’s feeding lasts, but he does know that somewhere in the haze of it, he brings up his other hand to push Fai’s flyaway hair out of his face. At the contact, Fai lifts his head, chest heaving as he gasps for breath. His whole mouth is red with blood now, some of it trickling down his chin. And his eyes are glowing gold. “Kuro,” he says breathlessly, looking up at him with an expression of wonder. It does strange things to Kurogane’s gut, or maybe that’s just part of the slight lightheadedness he’s feeling from blood loss.

“Wipe off your face.”

Fai scrambles upright, wiping his face with the sleeve of his jacket a few times. His other hand remains on Kurogane’s arm. “This is– I feel– everything is so _bright_ now,” he says, looking around. “It’s– it’s almost bearable,” he adds as he turns his attention to Kurogane’s arm. “Did I hurt you?”

But the cut and the puncture wounds are already scabbed over, and have the look and feel of old wounds. “Huh,” Kurogane says. He’s only had experience with Folk who have been corrupted, bloodsuckers who drain their victims of everything and hunt to kill. This is different.

Solicitously, Fai pulls Kurogane’s jacket sleeve down once more, before wrapping his fingers around Kurogane’s wrist and holding on. There’s still blood on the corner of his mouth. Kurogane’s fingers itch to reach up and wipe it off. Instead, he says, “Now use that power to get us where we need to go.”

“How?” Fai says. “Just by thinking about it?”

“By wishing,” Kurogane says for lack of anything better; it’s not as if he has power of his own to fling around. They’re in uncharted territory now, working from instinct and from knowledge Kurogane barely understands. “Wish for a way to get us there.”

“Wish very hard!” Mokona adds, jumping back onto Fai’s shoulders.

Fai closes his eyes. Kurogane watches him until he hears the ocean quiet behind him, and then he turns to see the waves along the shoreline go still. A moment later, a lattice of golden magic creates a path across the surface of the water and around the side of the cliff. As it settles there, Fai opens his eyes and blinks, looking shocked at what he’s done. He looks at Kurogane. “Do you see that?”

“Yes,” Kurogane says, the corners of his mouth tugging up a bit at the childlike wonder in Fai’s eyes. “Let’s hope it holds.”

“It will,” Fai says, though his voice doesn’t have much conviction. Kurogane isn’t totally confident either, but they don’t have a better option at the moment, so he leads Fai towards the path. It’s surprisingly solid under their feet, even though Fai’s grip tightens convulsively on Kurogane’s wrist when he makes his first step.

“Just hold my hand,” Kurogane says, and Fai does.

They make slow progress along the path, Fai insisting on testing each step before he makes it even though Kurogane is moving ahead of him. Kurogane hopes there isn’t some kind of time limit to this strange geas he’s created, because if the path disappears, they’ll both be in trouble. But it bears their weight as they round the edge of the island.

“What’s that?” Fai says out of the blue, and Kurogane whips his head around to try and see what Fai is pointing out. “The stuff on the rocks. And the waves. Is it magic, or…?”

“Yes,” Kurogane says. He’s gotten so used to the strange sight that he can almost ignore it by now. “It’s coming from the place that we’re going.”

“It looks like an oil spill,” Fai says, seeming to forget his nervousness as he peers at the sea. “It’s not good, is it?”

“No.” That’s for sure, even though Kurogane can’t really say _why_ he’s so convinced of the wrongness of this power.

“Is it Ashura?”

“Maybe.” But Yuuko had said that Ashura was probably not the root of their problems. Which left an unpleasant mystery that Kurogane was trying not to dwell on. Ashura was killing people; this power was simply… getting everywhere and into everything. But it was invisible to most and didn’t have any discernible effects, so Kurogane was willing to put it aside for now. Hopefully Ashura’s death would make things right.

Hand-in-hand, they continue. Kurogane’s palm is sweaty, or maybe it’s Fai, or maybe it’s just the wet sea breeze worming its way between them. Fai is holding his hand tightly, but Kurogane is gripping him with equal strength, half-afraid that if he lets go, the geas will dissolve under him and send him splashing into the waves. It would be easy to tease, but Fai doesn’t comment. He’s pale and thin-lipped, focusing on putting one hand in the other while looking only at the path he’s created. And that’s how they make it to the barrier, and the polluted power it oozes into the waves.

“I remember this place,” Fai says, looking up at the face of the cliff. “I remember this.” He reaches out to touch the barrier.

“Wish for it to break,” Kurogane says, but the geas is already dissolving at Fai’s touch. Beyond it looms the mouth of a cave, dark and damp and reeking of brine. There’s no full moon to light their way here, so Kurogane pulls the crescent moon talisman out from under his shirt. “Light,” he says, and their surroundings are suffused with a silver glow.

“_Wow_,” Fai breathes quietly, and they move forward, into the cave.


	4. Full Moon

Kurogane steps across the threshold of the cave and immediately stops as a dizzying, nauseating feeling of wrongness washes over him. Fai must feel it too, because he staggers a little bit, looking to Kurogane with wide eyes. “What was that?”

“Don’t know.”

The cave entrance is tall enough that a bigger man than Kurogane could enter with ease, but the passageway narrows quickly in front of them. Kurogane can See the walls ooze with a thick layer of that strange, oily residue. It’s dripping down the walls of the cave and slowly flowing in an immaterial stream across the floor of the cave and down towards the ocean.

In this entire cave, it’s the only thing that’s moving.

“You,” he says, pulling Fai closer. “Both of you. Look.” Kurogane points to a spot just in front of his eyes, where a water droplet hangs suspended in the air. It looks like it was falling from the ceiling, but it never made it to the ground.

Fai reaches out with his free hand and touches the droplet. Half of it remains on his finger. The rest of it falls to the ground.

“We should hurry, Kurogane.” Mokona’s voice is grave. “Mokona feels funny…”

“Hn,” Kurogane grunts and glances at Fai, who seems more at ease now that he’s shielded from the vastness of the sea and the sky. “Can I let go of your hand?”

“What?” Fai is still examining the water captured on his finger. He looks up at Kurogane, then flexes his hand in Kurogane’s grip, letting go. “Yes. You should– you should probably go first.” He looks distracted, nervous. It’s obvious they’re walking into some kind of trap, and Fai’s behavior makes Kurogane wonder if he knows what the trap might be.

But that doesn’t matter. Fai has made his choices and Kurogane is determined to end Ashura’s curse – and his life – now, before anyone else has to suffer. He moves in front of Fai and forges ahead.

Around them, the cave is eerily silent. As they move away from the cave mouth, the constant roar of the ocean fades away. The only thing Kurogane can hear is the crunch of their footsteps on the rocky floor. There’s no sound of water dripping in the distance, or rocks shifting and settling. The air doesn’t move. And the oozing, oily power is getting thicker with every step.

The path they’re on goes slightly uphill, then slightly downhill, then curves to the right. Kurogane pauses at the blind curve. All of his instincts are screaming that this is the trap. He summons Ginryuu to his hand.

There’s a rhythmic noise ahead, like wind whooshing periodically through some hidden opening.

“It’s breathing,” Fai whispers, putting a hand on Kurogane’s back and curling his fingers in his jacket. “Something’s in there.”

The noise stops, and then there’s a snuffling sound. It’s scenting the air, Kurogane thinks. He shifts, breaking Fai’s grip. “Stay back here with the bun thing,” he murmurs. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Kuro,” Fai begins, looking wan and sick. “I remember this place– I need to tell you–”. But before he can finish, there’s another noise from inside the cave. Stone scraping on stone. Coral bones dragging across rock. Then Ashura speaks.

“I know you’re there.” His voice is deeper now; it reminds Kurogane of a landslide, but under miles of crushing water, sending the vibrations reverberating out into the deep. “I sensed you the moment you broke the barrier. Come out.”

“Kuro,” Fai says again.

“We don’t have time for this.” Kurogane takes a breath and steps out, around the curve to the next section of the cave.

The first thing he notices is its immensity, at least relative to the cramped passageway that they’ve been following. The cave widens and opens up, and Kurogane can see that the floor is dotted with shallow pools and all kinds of sea-life – barnacles, anemones, things he can’t quite name but seem to grow here even without light to sustain them.

The second thing he notices is that every single surface, every stalactite, tidal pool, living creature, is coated with the slick, iridescent power that has polluted half of Kalsoy. It’s so thick here it hangs in webbing from the ceiling, all growing out from somewhere, some_thing_ in the back of the cave.

The third thing he sees, all in the space of half a breath, is Ashura. Under the waning moon, he’s wolflike once more, though Kurogane wonders if _wolf_ isn’t simply what his mind supplies to wrap around the utter strangeness of Ashura’s form. Here, without the waves and the fog and the adrenaline of a first time encounter, Kurogane can get a better look at Ashura, and all he sees is horror. He’s vaguely wolf-shaped but his body is long and sinuous, his jaw huge and wide with its long needle teeth. Seaweed clings to him and gives him the illusion of fur. It’s hard for Kurogane to entirely understand what he’s seeing: legs that are not legs, bones that are not bones, eyes that are flat, white pearls.

A pressure, a crushing weight on Kurogane’s lungs. The feeling of being miles underwater.

The timelessness of the foul, dead air inside this cave.

“Welcome,” Ashura says, though Kurogane doesn’t see his mouth move. “Let us end this.”

And then they’re both moving.

This may be Ashura’s natural element, but he’s huge, and even augmented by his power, his body doesn’t have the same kind of agility Kurogane’s does. As Ashura rushes forward to meet him, Kurogane darts to the side, sending Ginryuu flickering out. The silvered blade flickers out, scoring a line across the same limb Kurogane wounded in their previous fight.

Ashura snarls, and it sounds like the roar of waves breaking on a storm-tossed beach. He flicks one hand – paw – limb – backwards, and Kurogane narrowly avoids a strike that would have sent him flying. And then Kurogane sidesteps another strike and puts his foot into a tidal pool that’s deeper than he expected. It wrenches his ankle and he stumbles slightly before righting himself. The bottom of the pool is soft though, and the sand sucks at his foot, slowing him.

The water belongs to Ashura, Kurogane thinks, yanking himself free and ducking underneath another strike. He has to pay attention.

As it always does during a fight, his mind narrows down to the essentials: Ashura in front of him, the terrain beneath his feet, Ginryuu in his hand.

He has to get in close if he wants any hope of winning this fight.

Ashura leans forward and snaps at him with horrifying teeth, and Kurogane ducks under the strike and moves forward, darting under Ashura’s guard. He slices forward with Ginryuu and scores a hit to Ashura’s throat, leaning his full weight behind his sword.

Ashura screams, and it sounds like the world is rending apart. Kurogane pulls his sword out from his body but it’s too late. As mud and brine rushes from the wound, Ashura grabs him in one clawed hand and throws him across the room.

Kurogane hits the cave wall and falls to the floor, Ginryuu skittering out on the rocks. The impact sends a shockwave down his back and pushes the breath from his lungs, but he’s still conscious – mostly – when he hits the ground. He flexes his hand. Ginryuu returns, and just in time, as Ashura rushes forward for an attack.

This time, Ginryuu impales the roof of Ashura’s open mouth, acting mostly as a shield that keeps Ashura from biting down all the way at once.

Ashura snarls. Kurogane can see his throat move, inhales the briny ocean rot of his breath. His jaws begin to close, and Kurogane feels Ginryuu pierce further, _further_, as Ashura bites down.

It’s a sacrifice move, Kurogane thinks, and tries to roll out of the way. But Ashura puts one heavy hand-foot-claw on Kurogane’s chest, bearing down with all his weight.

The rest of Kurogane’s breath leaves his lungs in a _whoosh_, and his ribs creak under the sudden pressure. The pain makes him want to scream in agony, but he doesn’t have the breath to do so. Instead, his arms flex uselessly as he vision is overtaken by pinpricks of darkness. The darkness shimmers, too, like the polluted power that’s covered every surface of this cave.

Maybe it’s dripping onto him, Kurogane thinks. Maybe it’s carried on Ashura’s breath, on the warm and salty liquid (blood? brine?) pouring from his wounds. Ashura’s claws dig into his chest, sharper notes of pain in the symphony of agony that’s already consuming Kurogane.

Time slows, or at least it seems to, as Kurogane, for lack of anything else to do, holds Ginryuu steady in what should be a killing blow. Slowly, inexorably, Ashura’s teeth close on his arm…

From the back of the large chamber, Kurogane hears a shout. He can’t quite make out the words, but he can hear the note of panic in the voice. Fai.

“_Don’t_–” he attempts as Fai rushes into the cavern, Mokona on his shoulder. At his words, the beast’s grip tightens brutally, and Kurogane feels something crack. A rib, he thinks as the pain radiates from his chest in a hot burst. Maybe his sternum. Not good. His grip weakens on Ginryuu’s hilt.

“Kuro!” Fai is calling. “_Kurogane_!”

Beyond the blackness that’s overtaking his vision, Kurogane sees a brilliant flash of golden light. That’s Fai’s power, he recognizes absently, with the part of his mind that is still functioning beyond the lack of breath in his lungs or the pain in his ribs. And, as if in slow motion, he watches as the light splits into tendrils that bind Ashura’s limbs, his torso, his throat, and pull him back away from Kurogane.

Ashura doesn’t go without a fight, of course. He digs his claws into Kurogane’s chest (Kurogane hears more than feels another _snap_ in an uncomfortable place) and roars, dislodging Ginryuu from the roof of his mouth. Kurogane goes limp, his arms falling painfully to his side. As Fai finally pulls Ashura away, the beast’s teeth snap down where Kurogane’s sword arm had been a moment before.

And then the beast is suspended, bound by ropes of power as air floods back into Kurogane’s lungs with excruciating pain. He keeps his breathing as shallow as he can, fighting the urge to lose consciousness. The blackness recedes from his vision, and when it does, he can finally see Fai, his arms raised and mouth grim. He’s _radiating_ power – it flows along the lines of his body, across his eyes, through his hair – and looks like he’s about to buckle under the strain of it. His forehead is lined with sweat.

There are so many little details about Fai, Kurogane thinks, forcing his eyes to remain open. He could spend a lifetime exploring those details and still not know what makes him tick.

“Kurogane!” Mokona says, its voice high and desperate. The tone snaps Kurogane out of his almost-reverie. Consciousness, yes. Fighting, yes. “Its eyes! Get his eyes!”

Ashura thrashes in Fai’s binding. Fai clenches his fists, his shoulders straining and the tendons standing out in his neck, and the golden tethers visibly tighten. Ashura goes still, but it’s clear that Fai can’t keep this up for long.

Kurogane takes one shallow breath and then another, tightening his grip around Ginryuu. Then he hoists himself upright, ignoring the pain in his ribs, his back, his lungs, his head. He takes a step forward, and then another, and then his world narrows to himself and the beast that was once, and might still be, a king under the sea.

He raises his sword and looks into one of those flat, white eyes. It’s hard to read any expression in them, but Kurogane thinks that he sees… satisfaction. Relief. A complete absence of fear.

“Do it,” Ashura says.

Kurogane does. He lifts Ginryuu higher, ignoring the agony in his ribs, and drives the blade home.

Several things happen at once. Ginryuu’s silvered blade flashes brilliantly as Kurogane strikes the killing blow. The eye splinters, falling into pieces and revealing a dark, gaping void underneath. And Ashura _howls_.

The sound, wolf-like and whale-like and deafeningly loud, reverberates through the cavern’s unnaturally still air. It shakes the walls, rattles Kurogane’s broken ribs, and sends Fai tumbling off his feet.

When Fai loses his balance, he loses the geas, and the magical tethers binding Ashura in place dissolve in thin air, letting Ashura thrash from side to side. The death throes of a beast, Kurogane knows, but he’s still not quick enough to get out of the way before one of Ashura’s limbs catches him in the stomach and flings him into the wall.

He hits the rock shoulder-first, and feels a _pop_ as the joint is dislocated from its socket. Then his body falls, ragdoll limp, onto the ground.

The black spots are back. They dance in his vision, getting larger and larger. That’s alright, Kurogane thinks as Ashura’s howls trail off into a choking cough, and then silence. It’s over. Ashura is dead. They can take care of the rest later.

And then he doesn’t think anything else.

*

When Kurogane returns to consciousness, his whole body hurts. That’s what comes back to him first, until it resolves itself into a throbbing in his shoulder and a screaming ache in his ribs that flares up every time he takes a breath. Other sensations return more slowly: the way his shirt and pants are soaked from the wet ground. The sting as salty water seeps into the scabbed-over cuts in his arm. The way his head is lifted just slightly, pillowed on something softer than the wet ground. Hands, cradling his face.

Kurogane opens his eyes and hears a sharp intake of breath.

All he Sees is golden light. And then he blinks again, and the light resolves itself into Fai, illuminated by the power within him even as his eyes are shading back into blue. His eyes are wide, too, watery and red-rimmed, and there’s the beginning of a fierce bruise on his cheek. Kurogane tries to lift up his hand to touch it, but he uses the wrong arm, and his shoulder screams in pain. And then he grunts, and his ribs scream too.

“Don’t,” Fai says breathlessly. “Shh, don’t move.” One of his hands moves from Kurogane’s face to flutter around his head and neck and land on his chest. “Stay – you’re badly hurt, Kuro, and I–” he takes a breath. “You’re not supposed to move someone if you’re worried they might have a, a spinal injury. But I had to, a little bit, just to get you out on your back, and Mokona showed me how to put your shoulder right again, and,” he hunches down a little and Kurogane abruptly realizes that Fai is cradling his head in his lap. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

Kurogane doesn’t have a spinal injury. Does he? He wiggles his toes, and that works fine, so he figures things aren’t as bad as they could have been. That doesn’t mean things are great, though.

Abruptly, Mokona hops up onto Fai’s shoulder to look down on him as well. The white bun looks shaken but otherwise unharmed. “Kurogane’s awake!” it announces to the cave at large.

Kurogane moves his lips a few times. It takes real effort to actually speak, and his voice is hoarse when he manages to whisper, “How long?”

“Not long,” Fai replies at once, interpreting Kurogane’s brusque question. “I set your shoulder just– just a few minutes ago.”

Well. That explains why he feels just about as terrible as when he passed out the last time. He closes his eyes again for another few seconds, trying to center himself in spite of the pain. Then he licks his lips. There’s a coppery, salty taste there; he doesn’t know whether it’s brine or blood, or whose blood it might be. “Water.”

Obligingly, Mokona opens its mouth to about the width of its entire body and produces a water bottle.

Fai’s eyes go wide even as he takes the bottle and opens it up. “What?”

“Mokona can hold just about anything!” Mokona says proudly.

“Not worth asking,” Kurogane grunts in response to Fai’s look of consternation. It’s still hard to get the right amount of air in his lungs. He’s pretty sure (though not certain) that his ribs didn’t puncture anything when they broke, but the whole right side of his body feels uncomfortably tight.

“Here,” Fai says, holding the bottle to Kurogane’s lips. With his help, Kurogane manages to drink a good three mouthfuls without choking, though extra water pours unpleasantly cold down his chin and neck. Fai caps the bottle and wipes some of the excess away with his thumb. “Ashura’s dead,” he offers.

“Yeah,” Kurogane says. He’s tired. Ashura was a much greater challenge than any of the corrupted creatures he’d fought before. Without Fai, he would have…

Well. Kurogane doesn’t know what would have happened. Certainly nothing good. And that’s motivation in itself to get stronger. For now – “Thanks,” he says. “For the, you know.” The intervention, the geas. The magic, Fai would call it, and that’s not a bad word to apply to this situation.

“I should have done it earlier,” Fai replies immediately, not giving himself any slack.

That’s another thing they’ll have to address, Kurogane thinks with the calm of a man who is close to drifting out of consciousness once more. Everything feels distant, slightly left of center. That’s excellent for dealing with the pain that’s gripping his torso. It’s less excellent for matching the urgency of whatever they’re doing here in the sea cave.

What _are_ they doing here, in the sea cave?

Kurogane forces himself to focus again, and glances around the chamber, moving as little as possible. There’s Ashura’s body, looking surprisingly small in death. The fearsomeness of it, the power that put weight behind his blows, is gone now. Now it resembles a shipwreck instead, a broken reef. And then, beyond that, the walls of the cavern are still oozing with that shimmering dark power. It hasn’t lessened in any way, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to, anytime soon.

“It didn’t go away,” Fai says, following his gaze to the place where the strange power is the thickest – at the back of the cave, where it hangs in webs around something small and dark and roughly cylindrical. “That’s what I wanted to tell you about before. But it… it didn’t make a difference in the fight, I think, so,” he drops his gaze but avoids Kurogane’s eyes.

“Hn,” Kurogane manages.

“And you, you can’t move,” Fai adds, deftly changing the subject. It’s a dirty trick, especially since Kurogane doesn’t quite have the brainpower or the stamina to argue with him.

“I can,” Kurogane protests, but remains still. He knows better than to waste valuable stamina on proving a point.

Fai ignores him. “If I– do you think I could– with magic?” he begins hesitantly, but his eyes and hands are already glowing gold. It’s weaker than it was before, though. Kurogane doesn’t know how power works but he knows that the Folk can’t use it indefinitely without in some way recharging it. And more than that–

“No,” Kurogane says before Fai can actually try anything. Ignoring the agony that any motion causes, he lifts his left arm, his good arm right now, and grasps Fai’s wrist. “Healing doesn’t work like that.” Granted, Kurogane doesn’t know much about how healing _does_ work in this situation, but it’s a complicated act and probably involves an even more complicated price. And one of the worst things that the Folk can do, to themselves and those around them, is to make a wish, a geas, without knowing the price. That’s how curses happen.

Fai frowns but his hands stop glowing as he slips out of Kurogane’s wrist and places Kurogane’s hand carefully back down onto his chest, leaving his hand on top of it. He looks like he’s about to argue, but before he can say anything, Mokona bounces into Kurogane’s peripheral vision. “Yuuko would know what to do!” it suggests, looking between him and Fai. “Mokona is sure that Yuuko has some way to help!”

That’s true, though Kurogane shudders to think of what kind of price they might pay for this. “Help me it up.”

“You shouldn’t–” Fai begins, but Kurogane is already levering himself up with a grunt, bracing himself with his left arm, and Fai scrambles to help him sit and then brace himself against the slimy cave wall. A fresh wave of dizziness sweeps over him, and Kurogane has to close his eyes and breathe for a second. Maybe he has a concussion along with the broken ribs, he thinks. That would explain all the… head things going on right now. Brain things. Whatever.

There’s a slight pressure at his lips. The water bottle. Kurogane drinks, then swallows and opens his eyes. “Alright, white bun.” He scrambles in his pocket for his silver dagger. It’s still there, luckily, and still intact when he removes it from the sheath. He doesn’t want to move his right arm too much right now, but it’s easy enough to hold the knife left handed.

“Wait,” Fai says as Kurogane is about to slice across his right wrist. “Let me do it.” And he grabs Kurogane’s hand, prying the knife free.

To spare both of their fingers, Kurogane lets go, but he doesn’t give up. “Don’t, idiot.” He’s never seen Mokona take anyone else’s blood. He doesn’t know what kind of reaction the thing will have. But Fai, mouth set in a stubborn line, is already making a cut across his forearm. In Kurogane’s Sight, the blood welling up in the cut shimmers gold.

As the first drop of blood falls, power begins to swirl around Mokona. It siphons up Fai’s shimmering drops of blood, adding gold to the purple and red of whatever geas the ritual activates. The vortex of power is wider than Kurogane has ever Seen, and he can feel it too, like an electric charge in the air that makes the hairs on his arm stand up. Kurogane would back up, if there was anywhere left to go. But he’s stuck, and he won’t leave Fai, and so he just tenses up and watches.

Another drop falls. The gold flares brighter.

Another. Fai’s hand is a bit shaky as he holds out his arm.

Another. The air is still and dead inside the cavern, but Kurogane feels the power like a rushing wind across his face.

Five drops of blood, and Mokona’s eyes open wide, the image of Yuuko’s circle projecting from its forehead.

“That’s enough,” Kurogane says, and reaches forward with a grunt of pain (the stabbing sensation in his ribs makes his eyes water) to grab Fai’s arm and force it away. A drop of blood splashes to the ground, where it assimilates into the iridescent ooze that Kurogane Sees covering every surface.

He looks up. The circle is still there, as if Mokona is having a hard time getting through. And then the projection resolves itself into an image, but it’s blurred, like they’re looking at Yuuko through a clouded mirror. She has her back turned to them as she does up her hair, but she turns to look over her shoulder, her gaze sweeping over them.

“Well, hello there.” Yuuko’s voice sounds distant too, like she’s speaking to them from underwater. “You are in a very strange place right now.”

“We killed the wolf,” Kurogane says without preamble, before Fai or Mokona can get a word in. “Is the curse broken? Can you See around here again?”

“I cannot,” Yuuko says immediately, and while Kurogane isn’t surprised, he is annoyed. “But it seems you’re in the very heart of the problem, since it’s hard to reach you even through Mokona.” She finishes tying back her hair and turns to sit, leaning forward to peer at them and at their surroundings. Her gaze fixes on Fai. “You must be Fai Flowright. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

To his credit, Fai takes that in stride. “And you must be the In-Between Witch of Dimensions. I’ve heard a lot about you, too.”

“Please,” Yuuko says and smiles, settling down in a chair. “Call me Yuuko. Your blood is quite powerful. It was almost too strong for Mokona to use. Did you know that?”

“I…” Fai looks at Mokona guiltily, and then back at Yuuko. “No. I– I thought I left all of my magic. Here.”

“Here?” Kurogane repeats, turning to frown at Fai, who avoids his gaze.

“In this cave.” Yuuko looks past Fai, past Kurogane, glancing around the cave’s interior. Her expression goes grave. Kurogane wonders what she can see, what she can sense, even through the Mokonas’ tenuous connection. “That’s not all you left, is it?”

Fai says nothing.

“It probably does not surprise you that there are few things in the Between that can block my Sight,” Yuuko says, glancing at Kurogane before returning her attention to Fai. “Most wishes draw my gaze. Deals, well-made or not. Threads of hitsuzen pulled tight or cut. Promises, broken or kept. Payments, fair or unfair. But when someone wishes for the impossible… that is when my vision grows dark. Tell me, Fai Flowright. What did you wish, when you poured out your power here in the cave?”

There’s a long silence before Fai answers. “Fai. I wanted… I wanted Fai to come back.”

_Fai?_ Kurogane thinks, turning to frown at Fai again.

“But he didn’t come back,” Fai adds quickly, shifting to avoid Kurogane’s gaze at all costs. “So there wasn’t–”

“He didn’t come back because he cannot come back,” Yuuko interjects, speaking slowly and calmly over Fai’s objections. “The dead can never be brought back to life, Fai. No matter who or what they are, no matter how powerful you are. The rule is unbreakable.”

Fai is still turned carefully away from Kurogane, but Kurogane can easily imagine his expression right now: mouth drawn tight, eyes averted, face drawn and pale.

“The dead cannot be brought back,” Yuuko repeats, “but the power you pour out can still change things. And the more power you have,” she gives Fai a significant look, “the more of an effect it can have on the world. Did you notice anything strange about this cave, when you came in?”

There’s a pause. Fai doesn’t fill it.

“Nothing moves,” Kurogane says, and Yuuko turns her gaze to him. “Everything’s frozen. The water. The air.”

“Everything is stopped,” Yuuko agrees. “Nothing changes. This cave is a fixed point in time while the world moves on without it. But it isn’t separate from the world either. You know that too.”

“The stuff on the waves,” Kurogane says, and tries to imagine it: this tainted power, this impossible wish, oozing from the cave for years and years, until it’s in the water and the earth and the air, until the northern half of Kalsoy is gripped in this unworkable geas, just a little bit out of sync with the rest of the world. Not enough to make a difference to the residents, perhaps, but enough to shake off Yuuko’s sight and let her know there was something profoundly wrong in the world.

“So it’s my fault,” Fai says quietly, looking around the cavern. His gaze lingers on the dark shape at the back, where the power is thickest. “All of this. It’s me.”

“Yes and no,” Yuuko says. “It _was_ your power. Now it is something else. And if we are to place blame, the fault here belongs to many people. To your guardian, who surely knew some of this but chose not to tell you, probably because he believed that the power in this cave would slow his own curse, as well.”

Fai glances up, finally allowing Kurogane a glimpse of his face. “Did it?”

“I cannot say,” Yuuko says and then relents a little. “Perhaps.”

Fai nods slowly, glancing at Ashura’s withered corpse on the ground. “People request things from you, right? You grant wishes.”

“I tell people what price they must pay for their wish to be granted,” Yuuko corrects him, watching Fai with an unreadable expression.

“Be careful,” Kurogane says. There are some wishes, like bringing the dead back to life, which are impossible. There are other wishes, other geas, that are only possible with a heavy price, one which people are not always prepared to pay. Yuuko is as trustworthy as someone like her can be, but there’s so much that Fai doesn’t understand. So much that can trip him up right now, and Kurogane won’t be able to help. He’s only human, after all.

Fai doesn’t acknowledge him, but he does lift his chin a little, giving Yuuko a determined look. “I have two requests, then. First, I want to know how to fix all of this.” He gestures around the cavern. “And second, I want to heal him.” He touches Kurogane’s shoulder.

“You don’t–”

“That’s my request,” Fai says, cutting Kurogane off.

Yuuko glances between the two of them. Her expression is hard to read in the slightly fuzzy, blurry projection from Mokona’s forehead, but she looks almost satisfied. “You wish to the balance that your power disrupted,” she says. “And you wish to care for Kurogane’s injuries.”

“Yes.”

Yuuko stills and her gaze goes distant as she weighs wishes and prices. As always, it’s an eerie sight.

“Fai,” Kurogane begins, but Fai’s hand presses more firmly on his shoulder.

“Let me do this,” he says in a low voice, glancing at Kurogane and almost meeting his eyes. “You’ve protected me this whole time. It’s the least I can do.”

Kurogane opens his mouth to argue, but Yuuko speaks before he can say anything else. “Even in death, a Sea King is powerful. Bring me his eyes.”

Fai gets up to go to Ashura’s body. Kurogane tries to rise and follow, but the pain overtakes him as he leans forward and he has to stop and breathe for a second, his head swimming. “Kurogane shouldn’t move!” Mokona scolds. “Kurogane should wait for Fai!”

“Waiting is as important as fighting,” Yuuko says primly, but neither she nor Mokona are looking at the wide-eyed, bloodless expression on Fai’s face as he approaches the body of the man (or monster) who was at once his savior and his guardian. There are some things no one should do alone – but Fai is already kneeling down, the silver dagger flashing in the dim light. And then he’s standing, his hands cupped.

“One of them is broken,” he says as he returns to show the pearls to Yuuko, kneeling in front of Mokona so the white bun can get a look at them.

“That’s fine,” Yuuko says. “Mokona?”

Mokona opens its wide mouth, revealing an endless empty space where power blooms to life. It sucks the pearls in… and they float up towards Yuuko. She tucks them into the voluminous sleeve of her kimono. “Very good. In exchange, take this.” She leans down to pick something up by the base of her chair. Kurogane doesn’t see what it is, but the next moment Mokona’s mouth opens… and spits out a clear, cut glass bottle containing some kind of–

“Liquor,” Kurogane says as Fai takes the bottle. Of _course_ it would be liquor.

Yuuko just smirks at him and addresses Fai. “There are few Folk who possess the power to heal. But drinking this should numb Kurogane’s pain and keep his insides in place. The rest will take time.”

Fai nods, his grip tightening on the bottle for a second. “And the second request?”

“That is a little trickier,” Yuuko says. “But most of the price for that request has already been paid by you. Your feelings. Your life here, the time that you’ve spent alone. All of this is part of your wish.”

“And the rest of it?” Fai’s expression is still pale but determined.

“You must cut what is binding Fai to this cavern, and binding this cavern to that time. And you must do it yourself.”

Fai nods again, looking vaguely sick.

“You have the tool,” Yuuko says, nodding at Kurogane’s silver dagger, which is at Fai’s side. “You must simply summon the will. And that is all the guidance I can give you.”

“Thank you,” Fai says distantly, and Yuuko offers them all a smile before her image flickers and then disappears.

*

After Yuuko’s image disappears, the cavern is totally silent. Wordlessly, Fai pulls the stopper from the glass bottle and hands it to Kurogane. “My twin’s name is Fai,” he says without looking at him. “Was.”

Kurogane sniffs the liquid in the bottle. It smells like alcohol, confirming his suspicions, but also has notes of orange and almond and warm cinnamon. When he drinks it, the liquor burns in his throat and warms his chest, radiating outward into his ribs and along his spine. For a second, he wonders if Yuuko’s plan was simply to make him drunk enough that he’ll ignore the pain. If so, it’s working. He takes a breath and looks at Fai – or, at whoever he is. “What was your name?” he asks without thinking, the liquor buoying his spirits and loosening his tongue.

Fai’s mouth works a little, like he wants to speak but isn’t sure how. Then he says, “Yuui.”

“Yu–”

“Don’t,” Fai says. “Just call me Fai.”

“Fai, then,” Kurogane says, skimming his fingers over the facets of the cut glass bottle. Names have power, he thinks. Does Fai know that? “My name was Youou. Before – everything.” A name for a name, to make the trade even. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Fai looks at him, his expression surprised, then nods. “How’s, how’s the drink?”

“Good,” Kurogane says. By now, that warm feeling has spread throughout his entire body. He risks shifting forward. There’s an ache in his chest, but it’s bearable. He can move through it. “Huh. Guess it worked.”

“It had better work,” Fai says, and for the first time since they entered the cavern, his lips quirk up in a hint of a smile. Then the smile fades as quickly as it appeared. “I suppose I should…” He looks towards the back of the cavern but makes no move to get up from the ground.

“Did you know?” Kurogane asks. He wants to know whether he should feel betrayed, and if so, how much. He doesn’t feel much of anything right now, and that lack of surprise is almost just as hurtful. Some part of him was always expecting something like this.

“Yes,” Fai says without meeting his eyes. And then, “No. No.” He lets out a ragged breath and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. “I almost forgot about it. Not _him_, but… this. I thought, since I couldn’t bring him back, that my magic would just wash back into the sea. And that–” There’s a pause as Fai smooths his hands over his thighs, then clenches them into fists, his knuckles going white. “Fai always liked the ocean more than I did, anyway. He didn’t mind – he wouldn’t – we gave him a burial that was fit for a prince of the sea. That’s what Ashura said. And it’s been years. I couldn’t go back – but I should have remembered. And I did, just… too late to say anything. I wasn’t –” He seems to realize he’s rambling and cut himself off. “Sorry.”

Once again, Kurogane thinks of the things that happen to eight-year-old boys. He thinks of the expression on Fai’s face as he’d knelt by the corpse of his guardian. He thinks about the geas lining Fai’s skinny back – a security blanket, a wish for protection and, more than that, for normalcy.

“Hey.” Kurogane shifts forward to touch one of Fai’s hands, letting his fingers linger on his knuckles. “The witch said you had to do this yourself, but she didn’t say you had to do it alone, idiot. I’ll be right there.”

Mokona hops forward and hugs Fai’s other hand. “Mokona is staying, too!”

Fai looks up and gives them a tremulous smile. It rings false, but not so false to be offensive. “Thank you. The… the tide will be changing,” he says. “We should do it now.”

It still takes him a moment to get to his feet. Kurogane waits, because he can be patient when he wants to (_has_ to) and knows better than to push things right now. There’s still no sound in the cave other than their breathing and the rustle of their clothing – no breeze touches their skin, no water drips from the ceiling or in the pools.

A fixed point. A space outside of time.

Kurogane wonders how powerful – how desperate – Fai had to be, in order to work a geas as strong and dangerous as this. He wonders how long they _could_ stay here, without also somehow becoming untethered from hitsuzen, unmoored from the balance of things.

Finally, Fai gets to his feet. Kurogane follows in silence, his ribs and shoulder only protesting a little. Mokona jumps to Fai’s shoulder, Fai takes Kurogane’s hand, and they walk, skirting Ashura’s corpse and unmoving tidal pools, slowly but surely approaching the small shape in the very back of the cavern.

Up close, Kurogane Sees the way the power clings to the walls of the cavern and drapes down in thick ropes, a spiderweb enclosing the body of a pale, blonde eight year old boy. They must have been identical twins, Kurogane thinks, because in this Fai he can see echoes of Fai’s cheekbones, the curve of his jaw, his long fingers.

It’s better to notice that than to think of the blue tinge at the boy’s parted lips, or the slightly bloated look of his body under its seaweed and anemone shroud (Ashura’s doing, Kurogane is certain), or the way that the iridescent, oily power coats his body too, a second skin in Kurogane’s Sight.

“He’s, he’s still,” Fai says, his fingers clutching convulsively at Kurogane’s hand. “Like he’s sleeping. After all this time.”

Kurogane never had a sibling, but he thinks of how he would feel if it were his parents’ bodies before him – his mother with her long black hair and her slight smile, his father with his thick brows and strong arms. “If you closed your eyes,” he finds himself saying, “I could guide the knife.”

Fai tears his eyes away from his twin and looks at Kurogane. Kurogane can’t read his expression, but his eyes are bright in a way has nothing to do with power or blood when he says, “Are you like this with everyone? A shield? A guiding hand?”

Everyone. As if Kurogane goes on these kinds of journeys every other day, as if it’s normal for him to be in a sea cave, holding hands with a half-human man who has just drunk his blood. He feels his face get hot. “Shut up.”

Fai squeezes his hand and lets out a breath. “I’ll do it. I have to. But– thank you. And thank you, Mokona.” He carefully picks the white bun up and transfers it into Kurogane’s hands. “Stay here. I think I know what to do.”

“Mokona is rooting for you,” Mokona says gravely, and the two of them watch as Fai takes another step froward, Kurogane’s silver knife sparkling in his hand. He slices through the rope of power nearest to him. At the touch of the blade, it begins to dissolve with a shimmer of black iridescence and then disappear into a shower of gold. Each rope gets the same treatment as Fai works his way methodically inward, through the loops and tendrils of power binding his twin in this place. Looking around the cavern, Kurogane sees the residue of polluted power fade in kind, as if the destruction of power at the core of this place is reverberating out into the ether, cleansing all of Kalsoy.

When most of the power is gone, Fai crouches down next to the still body of his twin, putting a hand over the child’s closed eyes. Kurogane hears him murmur something – he’s not sure what – and then Fai raises the knife.

Kurogane takes a breath, ready to cry out in horror. But Fai doesn’t stab down, like Kurogane had feared. Instead, he slides the knife along Fai’s body, cutting through the power where it’s merged with Fai’s funeral shroud. There’s a moment where nothing happens. And then an iridescent shimmer follows the trail of the blade and suddenly it’s like a seal breaks – Kurogane feels a faint _pop_ of pressure in the tiny bones in his ears, then a _whoosh_ like the whole cavern is breathing.

The shroud splits open. The magic dissolves in a shower of gold, and the twin’s body goes with it.

Fai stays there a moment, crouched by the space where a body once was, the knife trembling in his hand. And then he stands and turns toward Kurogane, taking a step forward. “It’s done.”

The silvery light of Kurogane’s crescent moon pendant casts shadows under Fai’s cheekbones and darkens the bags around his eyes, leaching the color from his skin. It makes unshed tears glimmer silver in his now mostly-blue eyes. He looks like he’s made out of crystal and spun gold, and there’s a lightness to his gaze that Kurogane has never seen before. Kurogane lifts a hand, reaching out to touch Fai’s cheek–

And there’s a crashing, roaring sound as waves push through the passageway and into the cavern, as water sloshes through holes in the ceiling to fill the tidal pools.

“_No_,” Fai gasps, his eyes going wide. “The tide, the–”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, but Kurogane is already running, grabbing Fai’s wrist with one hand and the white bun with the other. The cave entrance was below sea level. That didn’t matter when the barrier and the broken geas kept the interior dry. Now, though, the ocean is rushing in, ravenous and unstoppable, and nothing is holding it back.

As they forge through the passageway towards the exterior, the water is up to their ankles, and then, a moment later, their knees. With every wave, it becomes increasingly difficult to struggle through the passageway, and Kurogane has a vivid vision of the water flooding in and crushing them against the walls. Fai must be thinking of that too, because he’s gripping Kurogane’s arm with both hands. His eyes are wide and blue but his pupils are narrowed to slits, and he’s breathing too quickly.

“Hey!” Kurogane says, shaking his arm a little. The force of it rattles through Fai. “Focus. I need you here with me.”

Fai blinks once, twice, and then fixes his gaze on Kurogane, nodding grimly.

They continue. The water is up to Kurogane’s thighs, and it’s sweeping in faster now. Kurogane braces himself against a particularly forceful wave that splashes water all the way up to his chest. Fai isn’t so lucky; he loses his footing and would have gone flying back if he wasn’t holding tight to Kurogane. There’s a golden glow as he uses some of his power to push himself back up. That gives Kurogane an idea.

“Use the water!” he bellows at Fai, fighting to be heard above the echoing roar of the waves.

“What?”

“For power!” Kurogane says, dragging them forward a few more steps. The water is at their hips. “Like from my blood! Feel it! Use it!” Fai’s mother was some kind of sea princess among the Folk, right? And Fai has lived on an island all his life. Fai paints the ocean, probably for a living. All of that has to mean _something_, right? To add up to some way for them to get out of this cave alive.

Fai nearly loses his footing again. “I– I can’t!” he shouts back. “I _hate_ the ocean, I– I don’t know how!”

Kurogane drags them a few more steps forward. He can’t see the exit in the darkness and confusion, but he can hear the waves getting louder. He wonders if the cave fills up relatively slowly – if the water is already at chest height, head height, at the cave entrance. If they’ll even be able to make it outside without the water forcing them back and trapping them here. “If you don’t, we’ll die here!” he says, yanking Fai along mercilessly. “So _figure it out!_”

Silence. Kurogane risks a glance back to see that Fai is frowning in concentration. That’s good enough for now. He puts Mokona on his shoulder, letting the thing cling to him for dear life, so that he has a free hand to grip the cave walls, and pulls Fai along like a dead weight.

The water is up to his stomach.

His focus narrows to the immediate present: the way his feet are anchored against the cave floor, the push and pull of waves against his body, Fai’s weight behind him. If this is a battle, then Kurogane’s opponent is the sea, and right now, it’s hard to say who’s winning.

The water is up to his chest.

And then Kurogane missteps, his foot landing on an uneven patch of ground and sending him off balance. In that same moment, a wave slams into his chest. It sends him tumbling back into Fai, who gives a startled yelp, and they both go into the water.

Kurogane claps a hand over Mokona, heedless of how tightly he’s gripping the white thing; he tries to get his feet underneath him, but another wave knocks him back again. He feels Fai’s grip tighten on his arm as they both get pushed into the wall of the cave, then dragged towards the entrance again.

If Kurogane could get his feet under him, the water might be up to his shoulders, but the constant, violent push-pull of the waves means that he can’t seem to get his balance. He comes up for a breath only to notice that his head is alarmingly close to the ceiling, and then he’s swamped by another wave.

There’s a point where fighting with the sea becomes fighting with yourself – fighting with the aching muscles that need to rest, the screaming lungs that need to breathe. Fighting his mind, which wants to shut down from the pain and the terror and the freezing cold water. Fighting that tiny but persistent voice in his head that tells him to _stop_ fighting, to relax, to let everything be easy.

He doesn’t know if that voice comes from the ocean, or from inside himself. Perhaps it’s both. Saltwater and blood are mixing uneasily in his mouth from where he’s bitten his tongue.

He can’t breathe. He needs to breathe. Fai’s arms are twined around his, weighing him down. He thrashes on instinct… and Fai’s grip loosens.

_No_, Kurogane thinks. “No!” he says out loud, the word escaping in a stream of bubbles, with water rushing to take its place.

There’s a hand on his shoulder again. A flash of light. And then the world dissolves into water and motion and gold.

*

Kurogane only half remembers how they get onto the beach. By the time that he fully comes back to himself, he’s on all fours, bracing himself on the rocky shore as he vomits up seawater that scorches his throat. It hurts his lungs too, as he coughs and coughs, and his ribs.

Fai is lying on his back at arm’s length from Kurogane, his eyes closed and his chest heaving. He’s pale and worn out, and he has an impressive bruise ripening on his cheek, Kurogane notes between coughs, but he’s alive. And Mokona is sitting Fai’s head, giving Kurogane a worried look but seeming otherwise unharmed.

Good. If he’d lost the white bun in that cave, Yuuko would probably hunt him down and kill him.

When enough water has been expelled from his lungs and stomach, Kurogane flops down onto the rocky beach, the large and rounded pebbles digging uncomfortably into every part of his body. “Hey, you,” he says, checking if Fai’s conscious.

“Mokona is Mokona!” the white bun says indignantly, at the same time Fai says, “Hey, yourself.”

Kurogane lets Mokona hop over to him and hug the side of his face. “You got us out of there, didn’t you?”

“I… think so,” Fai says. “I was desperate, so I don’t…” He takes a breath and lets it go. “If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known to do that. I wish…”

“Don’t,” Kurogane says. He has an idea what Fai would wish for, but wishes like that were what had gotten them into this mess.

Fai laughs. It turns into a cough. “You’re right. Better not.”

There’s a moment of silence between them then, but it’s comfortable. Kurogane listens to the waves, almost docile now that they’re on the beach, and looks at the stars above them. There are so many more stars here than he remembers from his childhood.

“Kurogane’s cold,” Mokona, the little tattler, informs Fai. “He’s shivering!”

“Oh,” Fai says weakly and shifts an arm so that the back of his hand brushes Kurogane’s. He moves a bit more, linking their fingers, and Kurogane feels warmth begin to spread from that point of contact. Embarrassingly, it takes him a second to realize that feeling is Fai, using his power. “There’s probably some kind of price for this,” Fai says as the warmth settles in Kurogane’s chest and continues moving from their. His clothes and hair are drying too – whatever geas Fai created is sifting water from the fabric, sending it streaming back to rejoin the sea.

“Maybe,” Kurogane says. The thing is, _everything_ is wishes and prices and debts and bonds, and right now, he’s just happy to be warm and dry.

“Kurogane says thank you~!” Mokona says cheerfully, right into Kurogane’s ear.

“Hn.”

Fai laughs again, his grip tightening a bit on Kurogane’s fingers. Then Kurogane realizes something else. He shifts forward a little bit, leaning up on his elbow so that he can look at Fai, who is stretched out peacefully on the ground. He’s still wearing Kurogane’s cloak somehow, but now he’s using it more as a blanket.

“You’re fine,” Kurogane says.

“I’m not,” Fai says, meeting Kurogane’s gaze. His eyes are gold again, shifting back to blue. An in-between color – sea green. “I’m just… I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

Being upright like this, even half upright, is exhausting. Kurogane lets himself flop back down to the rocky beach. “But you’re outside.”

“Don’t remind me,” Fai says and squeezes Kurogane’s hand again. He’s fairly certain the geas is finished, but Fai makes no move to pull away. Kurogane doesn’t either. He stays where he is, even as Mokona burrows its way into his now-dry clothing.

Silence falls between them again. Kurogane times his breathing to the sound of waves breaking, and slowly lets his eyes fall shut.

“_Oh_.”

Kurogane snaps into alertness at Fai’s exclamation. “What?”

“Look,” Fai says, pointing up to the sky with his free hand.

Kurogane looks. It takes him a moment to see what has captured Fai’s attention, but when he does, he gasps. There’s a green curtain of light in the sky, a line that hangs vertically far above their heads and shimmers with different shades of green. At first, Kurogane assumes it’s something only visible with his Sight. It glows in the same way power does, after all, and it’s so fantastically out of the ordinary. But he blinks, and blinks again, and the vision doesn’t change. It’s just _there_, silent and majestic in the sky.

A fringe of purple light limns the lower edge of the green curtain for a few moments, then disappears. The light fades and then return in a slightly different configuration, a swirl that changes even as it stays in place.

“What is this?” Kurogane asks, loath to break the silence.

“The Northern Lights!” Mokona says right into his ear, and Kurogane winces. “Yuuko showed us this on TV!”

“You watch to much TV, white bun,” Kurogane grouses without taking his eyes off the spectacle above him.

Fai shifts in Kurogane’s peripheral vision, bringing up his free hand to wipe his eyes. His voice is steady, though, as he asks, “You haven’t seen this before?”

“Never.”

“I haven’t seen it in a very long time.” Fai wipes his eyes again, and they watch as the vision above them changes again, the curtain looping in on itself in a fading spiral.

Kurogane wonders what causes these lights in the sky. Is it an expenditure of power? A geas placed on the earth long ago? Or is it something more mundane, explainable by some scientific phenomenon that he simply isn’t familiar with yet?

Or could it be both? Maybe this is what humans call science and what Yuuko calls hitsuzen, creating a strange spectacle of two worlds bound up together – a curtain of falling light, drawn back to reveal the wonder at the heart of things.

Kurogane still isn’t sure what that wonder is. But he thinks he’s touching a piece of it here, lying on a pebbled beach in the cold, his fingers linked to Fai and his ears full of the sound of the sea.

“I lost your knife, by the way,” Fai says some time later, as the light in the sky begins to fade. “Back there.”

Kurogane imagines his knife washing away into the ocean – a knife that had mingled two types of blood and broken a twisted geas, the final price for their work in the cavern. “You can make me a new one.”

“Make?” Fai says, and twists onto his side to frown at Kurogane.

“Why not?” Kurogane shrugs, or at least attempts to, with his aching shoulder and his exhaustion. “You could,” he glances sidelong at Fai to gauge his reaction, “come to the Moon Court with me. Or,” he adds quickly, “you could go to Yuuko. Work for her. She takes people in sometimes – she could teach you.”

Fai’s frown deepens, but it’s thoughtful rather than angry. “I… could,” he repeats like he’s never considered the possibility. Knowing Fai, he’s never considered the possibility of doing anything beyond living his lonely, walled-off life with his paintings and his grocery deliveries.

“Think about it,” Kurogane offers with forced nonchalance. “You’d be welcome.”

“And you’d be there,” Fai says, looking at him.

Kurogane glances away. “Well, yeah,” he says gruffly. “I live there. In the Moon Court.”

“I’ll have to sort out some things,” Fai says. His eyes are still on Kurogane.

“Yeah,” Kurogane says. That makes sense. The house, the paintings, all Fai’s other things – it wouldn’t be good to just leave that lying around. And he doesn’t know how humans really _do_ things, especially not outside Japan, but it seems like it would probably require some effort. “I could come back for you,” he offers before he can think it through. “In…” How long could all of this possibly take? “A week.”

“A week?” Fai laughs. “A month. If– if you still want me there,” he adds and his expression falters just slightly.

“I do,” Kurogane says. He meets Fai’s eyes again. “I will.”

Fai looks at him. The muddled gold and blue of his eyes makes them look green, or maybe it’s the remnants of the aurora above them. The bruise on his cheek has gotten bigger. His lips are parted, chapped by salt water.

Kurogane takes a breath, shifting forward just slightly–

“Mokona is so happy that Kurogane and Fai are good friends!”

Fai startles at Mokona’s cheerful voice, and Kurogane flinches back. The moment bursts like a soap bubble, as if it never happened. Their eyes meet again, but ruefully this time, and Fai gives a quiet laugh.

“Friendship, friendship~!” Mokona is singing, bouncing up and down between them.

“Shut up, white bun,” Kurogane says. He sits up, wincing at the aches and pains he’s already feeling, and grabs Mokona by its long ears. “Come on. We should get back.”

“Yes.” Fai gets up with just about as much difficulty, rolling his shoulders and stretching a bit. “Sleep. And then we can figure things out in the morning?” His expression is tentative as he looks at Kurogane.

“We will,” Kurogane agrees. He holds out his hand to Fai.

Fai takes it, and they walk together up the cliffside path and to the house on the hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who worked their way through this monstrosity - the longest complete fic I've ever written!
> 
> This fic was written for Team Sea as part of the 2019 Kurofai Olympics, for the fandom trope prompt "Vampire/Werewolf." If you're reading before September 30, 2019, please head on over to [the Kurofai Dreamwidth community](https://kurofai.dreamwidth.org/124350.html) to score this fic and check out the other entries for this year's event! ♥


End file.
